The first odd thing that happened early this summer was when I was walking my dogs in some fields we sometimes go to. They're big hayfields, totally open, bordered by woods.
On this particular day, there was not a cloud in the sky. We're just walking along when a huge shadow flashes across the ground in front of me. It was so large, the first thing I thought was "Thunderbird!" and looked up hopefully. Not a thunderbird, but a large bird indeed, hovering close above.
In these fields, I often see large birds doing their thing just hanging out catching air, but very far in the distance, and at very high altitudes. This particular bird was circling very low, so low I could study the color and texture of his beak and observe the lighter colored feathers on the ends of his large wings.
I didn't know what kind of bird it was, I'm not into birdwatching, although I think birds are awesome and whenever I see a parrot at a zoo I hang around for a long time talking to it like a crazy person and impeding other's enjoyment of it.
I thought being close to this big bird was simply a neat thing to happen. He circled round and round right above my head. Cool. I figured he had found a good updraft in that very spot. I moved on.
After a couple minutes I noticed the bird was not hanging out where I'd left him. He was near me again. , Then he (or she) was overhead once more. Still very low.
For the next 30 minutes, this huge bird followed us wherever we went. Later, a friend joined him.
It was cool at first to see this large bird up close, but after 30 minutes of being followed by it? It stopped being cute. It was getting creepy. Why the hell were these birds circling over me for this long? Did they know something I didn't? Did I smell? Could they sense I was about to drop dead from a heart attack?
On the way back, they finally abandoned me. Phew. My dogs and I were walking on a large, wide, level tractor path that hugs the edge of the woods.
Suddenly, there was a LOUD crashing, cracking sound just to my left, in the trees. OMFG. I froze. The dogs froze. This was no ordinary woodland creature, or human. The only thing big enough to make such a sound was a bear. The sounds were only a few feet away from me and I thought for sure a bear was about to burst out of the woods and I hoped my dogs would do something about it if it attacked me.
Then, something made me look up. I don't know what. I usually tend to stare directly at my feet when I go anywhere. I'm probably going to be a hunchback when I'm an old lady, my posture is that bad. But for some reason I looked up and noticed movement in the treetops. I thought the birds were back, and for a moment I was sure those birds had foreseen my death-by-bear. I could see the headlines ("Extremely rare bear mauling in New England", "Wussy dogs abandon female owner during bear attack")
Finally I realized what was actually happening. A tree was falling. Towards me. It had cracked at the base and entire tree was coming down neatly in classic lumberjack style. I jumped back and yelled "come here come here come here!!!!" to my dogs who were just standing under their impending doom. The tree crashed down, perfectly perpendicularly across the path, right in front of one of my dog's faces.
The poor dog stood there with a look of utter astonishment on his face for a few seconds and then started barking madly. The other dogs joined in. If they could have spoken English I'm pretty sure they would have said "OH MY GOD! HOLY FUCKING SHIT DID YOU JUST SEE THAT??!!"
( I took a picture of the tree. If I ever figure out how to extract it from my antique flip phone, I'll post it.)
I found out later from a bird guy that those big black birds are vultures:
I've been back to the fields many times since, and I still see them, but they are far, far away, very high up in the sky.
It's pretty strange to have a tree try to kill you, but I can chalk that up to normal chance. I can't explain why the vultures were following me for the previous half hour.
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