HERE WE SIT ...

TURKEY BUZZARDS AT BULL SHOALS DAM
These scavengers are permanent resdents at Bull Shoals Dam on the White River side. They wait for water generation, the effluent of which contains dead minnows and other decaying materials which provide these lazy birds a free and convenient meal, sometimes several times daily. Why work and hunt when it is so plentiful? A few seagulls compete with them in the winter, but migrate to the oceans and seas in May, leaving the lucky ugly critters to dine free.

Turkey buzzards as scavengers are protected species in US, so the "four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie" children's rhyme certain should not occur in reality in US, if it really ever did.

However, these somewhat ugly creatures remind me of another ditty.

My last 3 years of high school I was in a marching band which attended every school football game, in or out of town. When we traveled to a school in our conference it was by two huge buses. Often the trips were relatively long and we entertained ourselves by singing several group songs with no sense at all, like the 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, which decreased by one in each stanza, and the manner in which one bottle disappears varies with the many variations of this song. Few times we made it to the end, as most of us were asleep. (If our singing was every recorded, you would know why we were in band and not choir!)

But another such song is printed below, which has dozens of variations: we usually sang, 'waiting for something to eat, or something to drink.' 

 I am 75 and I bet these ditties are still sung. Maybe more remarkable is I remember them!

HERE WE SIT LIKE BIRDS IN THE WILDERNESS

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness;

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Waiting for our food.

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness;

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Waiting for our soup.

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness,
Birds in the wilderness;

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Waiting for our bread.

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness.

Birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness;

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,
Waiting for our meat.

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness;

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Waiting for dessert.

There are  You Tube videos of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall and also Here We Sit Like Birds in the Wilderness. I won't bore you with them.  However, sever of the 'Birds' ones are children, which are cute. One they do some kind of hand signs, but don't think it is signing like for the death. I do not remember that performance.

Photo: NitwWt1