About: Belled buzzard

The belled buzzard is a fearsome critter in American folklore frequently cited as an omen of disaster by the sounding of its bell. 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."