”Hi Steve...You may find this amusing , but my brother in law was very worried about it… My sister and family were in town from Brevard, North Carolina for the Outback Bowl last month and they stayed at the Hyatt downtown...They were on the 16th floor and had a great view of one of our bank buildings. My brother-in-law called me and said that he saw at least 200 buzzards swarming around on top of buildings. He thought there was something dead up there! He snapped some pictures and sure enough there were swarms up there. Is this true? I thought you would be a great source since you know Tampa so well. Thanks, Margaret Dixon.’’

- I do know about the buzzards. I also know about Brevard, where they pay homage to the white squirrels that meander around the town. My guess is our buzzards and their white squirrels wouldn’t be all that compatible.
My friend Bob Bishop, who used to work in one of those downtown buildings, did a study of the critters and discovered these are the same turkey vultures who show up in Hinckley, Ohio every Spring, where they have a Buzzard Day festival. He tried to get one going here a few Octobers ago -which is about when they arrive back in Tampa - holding a dinner and equiring everone to wear buzzard masks. For some reason it still hasn’t caught on.

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