MARK MY WORD: VULTURES VALUE COUNTRY MUSIC'S BRANSON

It's a bird-eat-anything world in Branson where the vultures have come home to roost.

You know you've hit the big time when vultures value your community.

Vultures are picky birds. They don't winter just anywhere.

Black vultures and turkey vultures have found a February home in the country music mecca of Branson in Southwest Missouri.

And why not? This town knows how to pull in visitors to see near-dead musicians perform at the tourist-trap theaters crowded along side the main highway. Elvis would perform here if he weren't so busy being dead.

Vultures love this town, and I'm not talking about the human kind.

Alfred Hitchcock should have filmed his movie, "The Birds," in Branson. That's the kind of entertainment vultures could sink their teeth into.

At any rate, one bird expert says she and co-workers have counted as many as a thousand vultures hanging out in Branson's sycamores and feasting on dead stuff that wouldn't make it in the road-kill hall of fame.

Cape Girardeau isn't so lucky. Eagles wing their way over the Mississippi River this time of year, but vultures aren't in view.

I'm convinced that's because we don't have a big tourist attraction. If we had a big, recreational lake we could land a whole city of vultures.

Of course, we probably would have to put up with the two-legged, land-grabbing kind, too.

But it would be worth it to know that we were a vision for vultures.

Vultures are a global bird. They live almost any place where country music is played. That explains why they don't live in Antarctica.

They have keen eyesight and have been known to pilot commercial jets from time to time.

Most vultures have weak feet and a bare head and neck, which explains why they all look like Don Rickles.

Vultures tend to live in groups. During the breeding season, vulture couples congregate in overhanging cliffs, caves and on the streets of Amsterdam.

Vulture moms and dads share in caring for the young, which puts them way ahead of some of this nation's deadbeat parents.

All New World vultures have a unique nostril hole in their beak, according to The World Book Encyclopedia. When viewed from the side, a person can see through the bird beak by looking into the nostril hole.

This is important because it gives Branson residents something to do in the winter.

Unfortunately, Branson folks don't get to see the Egyptian vulture.

The Egyptian vulture eats ostrich eggs, which it breaks by hurling small stones with its beak. When it can't find ostrich eggs, it throws stones at Jewish settlers on the West Bank.

There's also a vegetarian vulture, which feeds on palm-tree nut oil and despises its carnivorous cousins.

But Branson doesn't need them. It has plenty of vultures who know how to party. Some of them even sing.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.