Belled buzzard
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The belled buzzard is a fearsome critter in American folklore frequently cited as an omen of disaster by the sounding of its bell.[1][2] The animal is otherwise depicted as an ordinary buzzard except with a bell affixed to it. The belled buzzard originated from actual accounts of turkey vultures being fastened with cow or sleigh bells. The belief that the belled buzzard was one continuous entity, and not multiple birds, was common, and the creature rose to prominence in the 1880s on through the turn of the twentieth century. Belled buzzard stories circulated principally throughout the Southern United States, and it is the origin of the colloquialism "not enough sense to bell a buzzard."
Reports of buzzards with bells appear as early as the 1850s in the states of Tennessee,[3] North Carolina,[4] and Virginia.[5] While sightings of the belled buzzard were likely drawn from multiple buzzards, eventually, the determiner "the" would become standard largely replacing "a" or plural forms. Prior to the 1880s, the belled buzzard would also be sighted in West Virginia,[6] Delaware,[7] Georgia[8] and South Carolina.[9] However, it would be the belled buzzard's appearance in Brownsville, Tennessee during the yellow fever epidemic of 1878 that first connected the animal with a natural disaster.[1] While earlier reports focused on sporadic occurrences, the Brownsville case was the first to become widely cited.[1][10][11][12] It was from then on that the belled buzzard legend grew to take on a more ominous tone.
Prominence
Following the Brownsville case, sightings of the belled buzzard in the 1880s would rise exponentially. By 1885, the belled buzzard's range would expand to include the states of Maryland,[13] Ohio,[14] Kentucky,[15] Mississippi,[16] Texas,[17] and New York.[18] While most reports simply made mention of a sighting, those that elaborated further reinforced the belled buzzard's reputation as a harbinger of doom. Headings such as "A Bird of Evil Omen,"[19] "Disaster Feared with Coming of Belled Buzzard" [20] or other comparable titles readily attested to the belled buzzard as a precursor to calamity. The content of the articles were no less explicit on this point. A reference by the Delaware Ledger openly related "We most sincerely hope that the bell-buzzard, that has been so frequently spoken of our exchange, will not locate in this section. It might be the forerunner of cholera,"[21] whereas a Nebraskan paper simply noted, "A BUZZARD with a bell on its neck is frightening people in Maryland. They take it to be the Angel of Death."[22]