Bananas and seppuku

Transcribed from a series of text messages:

❦ ❦ ❦

Kathleen packed tea and a banana in my briefcase this morning. I’m at work, eating the banana, drinking tea, waiting for a security scan of a website to finish, wondering how I will coordinate fixing what I find, when there is a thump at the window.

View looking down (approximated).
View looking down (approximated).

I have two windows, and I’m 190 feet above the street. Thumps are odd, so I turn around and —

There is a large, ruffled, and agitated turkey vulture struggling to perch on the ledge outside the window. It is a granite ledge, six inches wide. It isn’t designed for perching, except maybe the occasional pigeon or sparrow, and a turkey vulture doesn’t really fit.

Turkey vulture, one of the more attractive of nature's beasts. Photo from Wikipedia.
Turkey vulture, one of the more attractive of nature’s beasts. Photo from Wikipedia.

I start to get up from my desk for a closer look and — the turkey vulture falls backward off the ledge. Not without a lot of fuss and feathers, but still a fall.

Then I notice a peregrine falcon, lazily spiraling through the neighborhood, make a very sharp turn and — dive.

Peregrine falcon, a graceful flyer, an urban raptor, and way smaller than a turkey vulture.
Peregrine falcon, a graceful flyer, an urban raptor, and way smaller than a turkey vulture.

Because of the angle, I can’t see what happened next, but it had to have been spectacular. While a peregrine is far too small to attack a turkey vulture in a fair fight, a turkey vulture is no match in aerial combat, especially when it is desperately and awkwardly preoccupied with avoiding a fall.

My banana, having suffered from  too much excitement, broke in half and fell to the floor.

Yes, this excessively long message is to tell you my banana committed seppuku.

About lcharters@gmail.com

I started life as a child.