Buzzards

(Unless otherwise noted, the Kathryn Tucker Windham blog is written by her children, Ben Windham and Dilcy Windham Hilley.)

Mother loved to collect Southern superstitions. She even wrote and illustrated a little book called Count Those Buzzards! Stamp Those Gray Mules! I think it’s now long out of print, but it was a great collection of superstitions from the South.

Counting buzzards was one thing Mother believed in doing. An old regional rhyme says the number of buzzards you see can predict your future. It goes:

One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
And four for a boy.
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for secrets never been told…


If Mother saw only one buzzard, I swear she would pull the car over to the side of the road until another buzzard appeared.


Mother used to talk about the buzzard rhyme in her storytelling sessions. People were intrigued, and she often got correspondence from folks telling her about their buzzard-counting experiences. One of her favorite letters came from a woman in Tennessee who wrote:

​Dear Kathryn,
Every time I see a buzzard, I think of you.