One of the defining landmarks of our backyard was the buzzard tree. This was a 30-40ft tall snag that rose above the surrounding willow trees and provided a nice hangout for the local buzzards. The other morning as I went to work I counted 20 buzzards between that snag and the cottonwood. This was clearly a record buzzard sighting and it had me worried that maybe they knew something about my health that I was missing. This weekend while taking photos in the backyard, I noticed that our buzzard tree had gone missing. Upon investigation I found that it had snapped into three pieces and was now lodged in our creek. Apparently, the buzzards didn’t pay attention to the stated sitting capacity for their tree and overloaded it. I would have liked to have been here when they broke it. That must have been something to see, a dozen birds with 6 foot wingspans trying to get out of each other’s way as their perch is plummenting to earth.