The Belled Buzzard

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
A cryptid that originated in American folklore during the 1880s, is an ordinary buzzard with a bell hung around its neck. The sound of its bell was believed to an omen of impending doom. 

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The Belled Buzzard prefer human carrion thus hearing its bell is a sign of doom

Hearing the tinkle of the Belled Buzzard was a harbinger of imminent doom.

The Belled Buzzard was seen in several states by the 1880s, and ultimately down in Peru, South America.

Its appearance always presaged a calamity. The southern states of Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina were the first to report sightings of the buzzard during the early 1850s. However a yellow fever epidemic that swept through Brownsville, Tennessee in 1878, established the creature as a harbinger of natural disaster.

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The myth of Belled Buzzard, is only about one animal that supposedly has been sighted since 1812

​The shadow of the Belled Buzzard covered other states by 1885. Maryland, Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi, Texas and New York reported a sighting of the buzzard as an omen of disaster. There were those that said the buzzard had been belled since the War of 1812, and that sightings of the bird went as far south as Peru. The normal lifespan of a turkey vulture is 20 years.

​A 1923 article printed in The Buffalo Times explains the story of the Belled Buzzard thus:

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Roxbury Mills, Maryland is the home of a buzzard that wear a bell about its neck, and the clang of the tocsin strikes terror to all who hear it, for surely as this iron note sounds through the air, so surely are war, pestilence or accident impending.

It will sit for hours on a limb or drag, gazing over the country and dreaming of the time when the land shall echo again to the rattle of rifle volleys and crash of cannon, for the people believe it took its abode here soon after the Civil War, and having tasted that most expensive of meats, human flesh, will not touch meaner carrion.

It has never been known to prey on dead cows or horses, but it seems to divine the provision of its wished for food, for whenever riot, or murder, or conflagration or pestilence or disaster approaches in any form, its black shadow is seen moving across the fields and rocks, and its bell is knelling some soul to speedy flight.

The Saturday Evening Post published a story on September 28, 1912 titled The Belled Buzzard

On September 28, 1912 The Saturday Evening Post published a story titled The Belled Buzzard written by Irvin S. Cobb based on the folklore retold for over fifty years. Set in a southern swamp, the murder mystery involves Squire Gathers who is haunted by the sight and sound of a turkey vulture with a cowbell hung around its neck.

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 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," 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.