Again the four of us stood in slack jawed wonder. If we had thought watching the previous group had been impressive, to watch a flock of twenty turkey vultures was almost beyond description. There wasn't any of the military precision of the massive flocks of geese that had been overhead for the last few weeks where each animal had a specific place in a formation.

Still, there was something about this loose grouping of twenty birds that was every bit as stirring as the sight of hundreds of geese stretched out across the sky. Maybe it was because none of us had ever experienced seeing that many large birds of prey in the sky together before. The most you might see is a family group of four or five near the end of the summer when the youngsters are being trained for the flight to the wintering grounds in the South.

Perhaps it is the total indifference to us down on the ground that helps make these moments so spectacular. As long as they are alive it won't matter what we do or how we behave - they will continue to fly that route as they have for probably longer than humans have been in North America.

They were flying south to north and north to south with the changing of the seasons long before there were men living on this land mass. Some consider birds only a few jumps along the evolutionary ladder from dinosaurs, and if you've ever seen a turkey vulture up close with their naked face and plucked necks, it's a hard argument to refute. If that's the case, who knows how many centuries, if not millennium, they have been taking this route.

These minor miracles always remind me of how insignificant humans really are when it comes to the planet. We are but a brief wink of the eye in terms of life. When you start to consider just our own solar system, we become even more trivial. In context of the universe itself, we don't even register. I think the more often we are reminded of this point, the better it is for us.

If there were any species on the face of the planet right now that needed a lesson in humility, it would be humans. I'm very much afraid it will take us coming close to destroying ourselves before we learn that lesson.