Welcome to this issue of Stumped by Nature, where we notice nature lurking just beyond our screens, curate a list of outside-y events in Austin, and build community with other folks in the thick of the startup ecosystem.
In this week’s issue:
🪶 Vultures
🌤️ Upcoming outdoors events
Let’s dig in!
-Nicole
PS. I was just recognized as a top connector in Austin by Austin Founders Feed. On standby if you need an intro to a bird, bat, book, or buddy.
PPS. Top Connector means I know great people who haven’t met each other yet. Come meet them: join ATX Outsiders.
Upcoming events I’m hosting:
Sunday, August 30: Reverse Brain Rot: We’re sprawling with books and notebooks at Barton Springs
Monday, August 31: Austin Reading Club: Get those pages in
Saturday, September 12: Bat-Watching and Bat Q&A: Featuring THE Skip Hobbie
NATURE SPOTLIGHT
My descent into birding coincided with a. my stay-at-home-parenting-induced need to decouple worth and productivity, and b. laughing a bit too wide-eyed at my friend jokingly calling her spouse her current husband.
I found outside.
And outside I found birds.
And in the limbo of my Mother’s Day Out post-drop off parking lot time, I found myself interrupting a kid-logistics-related conversation with similarly leaking women to point at the sky and say WTF are these birds circling overhead.
Today we’re digging into vultures.
Vulture Facets and Features
There are two common vulture species in Central Texas: black vultures and turkey vultures.
On the bird spectrum of elegant to chipper, vultures are metal.
You’ll know vultures by their dark plumage, stout bodies, featherless heads, and hooked beaks
Bald is beneficial—their anti-microbial heads keep stray chunks of carrion from congealing in feathers
Yep. Carrion. We’ll come back to this.
Described as weak-footed, vultures’ talons are made for walking, not gripping and carrying. They can’t even grasp a feather, which is an easy insult to sling until you realize you also cannot foot grasp a feather.
Adults can have a five-foot wingspan, and are over two feet tall
They’re the thermal-soaring type, covering upwards of 100 miles per day with minimal flapping in search of food
Vultures are quiet—they lack a syrinx, the organ required for complex calls, so their noises are straight from vibrating their throat and bill. Think: raspy breathing, grunts, very Parseltongue
They’re social, with titles for their different group activities as if they were in separate group texts: a committee at rest, a kettle in flight, a wake while feeding.
Nesting season produces 2-3 eggs, tended to by both parents. Cliffsides and hollows of trees are choice locations
A classic exterior home design
But their real party trick:
Vultures consume chaos. As key decomposers of the ecosystem, vultures are a hub of nature’s immune system. Their role in the ecosystem is as scavenging waste management
Their stomach acid is so powerful, it allows them to resist pathogens that would make other organisms suffer, including anthrax, rabies, and tuberculosis
Vultures’ main ecological job is to reduce the spread of disease, and they look and act the part
Urohidrosis is the word for urinating directly onto their own legs, which both cools them, but also contains uric acid that is thought to sanitize their carcass-wading extremities. That means they have the opportunity to belly up to the decaying bodies without infecting themselves
They defend themselves by vomiting. Their vomit is a. corrosive b. foul-smelling c. a quick cargo offload to lighten the load for a winged escape
If you borrow these party tricks for your own ecological wellbeing, please let me know how it goes.
Comparison is the thief of joy
But being pretentious about bird breed nuance can be worth it.
Exhibit A:
Turkey vultures have red, turkey-looking faces and more white on their underwings.
Black vultures are black headed, with white wing tips.
Exhibit B:
Turkey vultures can smell rotting flesh from miles away
Black vultures have good vision, which is all the better to watch turkey vultures follow their noses, so black vulture can invite themselves to the communal feast and bulldoze their way into the carnage.
Exhibit C:
Turkey vultures are Cathartes aura, which translates to purifying breeze or emanating catharsis. How majestic.
Black vultures are Coragyps atratus which translates to the goth friend. More specifically: raven-vulture clothed in black
Ziggy at Sherwood Forest Faire, 2024
Ye Old Omens
While modern folks are squeamish around associations with death/loss/dying, and vultures have gotten dragged through pop culture as symbols of danger, the Ancient Egyptians considered vultures sacred protectors. There’s an older instinct to read vultures as a symbol of renewal, patience, and letting go of the old to make way for new growth.
In olden-adjacent times, the spring season brings Sherwood Forest Faire, roughly an hour east of Austin, and with it comes the Sky Kings Falconry show. For at least three years, my daughter has claimed black vultures as her second favorite bird, due in part to Ziggy, the touring black vulture, known to dip under chairs for under-attended turkey legs. This amateur video of Ziggy going rogue to an enthralled, costumed crowd may be the Ren Fest dip into the water you need, with awareness that he who hath not acted in desperation for a potato can cast the first stone. Side note: apparently you can rent a bird to be a ring bearer. Ring birder? Perhaps get those rings insured first.
While I’d normally encourage my daughter to mimic her favorite bird calls, I’m holding off on this one.
So tl;dr: going outside snowballed
And when my firm hosted an event last week that included caricatures of people as powerful animals, there were some excellent jaguars and orcas and one aggressively sexy sea turtle, but I knew with certainty this was the landing.
Artist Kevin assured me this was a black vulture, not a turkey vulture
🖌️ Kevin Greer
How exciting to digest the chaos and transform what threatens vitality.
How exciting that the scary-looking thing looming may be a portal into a healthier life.
UPCOMING EVENTS
🗓️ August 27: Bat City Film Night: Excellent panelists for a very Austin effort
🗓️ August 28: Pitch and Run ATX: Running buddies at the ready
🗓️ August 29: Moondance: Why not
🗓️ August 29: Nature Day at Nalle Bunny Run: Options galore
🗓️ August 29: Rose and Shine: Garden-adjacent yoga
🗓️ August 29: The Board Walks: It’s going to eventually cool down
🗓️ August 29: Fun & Games at the Farm for LBJ's 117th Birthday: LBJ will also attend in spirit
🗓️ August 29: Night Hike: Caves + UV glowing lichen await
🗓️ August 30: Reverse Brain Rot: rally with the creatives
🗓️ August 31: Austin Reading Club: I must know what you’re reading—see you there
🗓️ September 1: Hill Climbers Tuesday Ride: whip out your onesie
🗓️ September 2: Group Skate: with free agua fresca and cityscape views
🗓️ September 3: Austin Ruck Club: Your Thursday morning is begging for a 6am event start time
🗓️ September 5: Bat Fest: Yes, there’s a costume contest
🗓️ September 12: Bat-Watching and Bat Q&A: I’m co-hosting this. Bats!
That’s all for this week!
In the meantime, I hope you gobble up the things you love, even if it scares people.
-Nicole
OPTIONAL SIDE QUESTS
🪵 Need to metabolize something? I help people write. Let’s chat.
🪵 Are you looking for a community of people in the startup ecosystem who go outside together? I’ve got you.
🪵 Speaking of, I chatted about local community building on this thing called a podcast
🪵 Are you sitting on a misogi-esque story? Spill.
🪵 Follow my calendar to know when we’re rallying.
🪵 I also write essays: this one is about witnessing a bison harvest.
🪵 Is this newsletter not your vibe? Forward it to your enemies to make them suffer too.
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