need to gather a few for dinner. though they look a bit thin. i remember turkeys walking by the window at work. seems they had a turkey farm down the block and a few would always escape. big fat things just strolling on by.
These are 100% wild and quite skittish and hard to get good shots of. Even if I am inside. When it gets nicer out I may try to hide in the woods to get some shots but they have good eyes and are as difficult as deer to get close to.
They are funny! I saw turkeys in trees during a hike in CA. It's really weird to hear gobbling above your head. Before that, I'd only known domestic turkeys.
I didn't know that could fly that well, Patricia. I mean, I've seen the wild ones fly a little bit close to the ground but I've never seen a turkey in a tree!! That's weird.
Mary, I know it sounds strange. My hiking buddy and I really had a laugh. Domestic turkeys are too fat to fly, I think. But the wild ones make the same sounds, apparently, because we certainly heard it. John is probably used to this, because he lives out in the country.
I was watching some black-crowned night herons roosting in some small trees at a wildlife refuge the other day when they started fussing and squawking and flapping around. When I looked to see what was causing the disturbance, it was a wild turkey climbing on some of the branches they were roosting on!
Yes, we have them too. They like picking on the mulched mound just off our screened deck. I can stand very close without spooking them but a good pic is nearly impossible. The ones here are very large, perhaps 20 lbs or more. Big for a wild bird. In the spring we get baby chicks.
Tempting isn't it John to grab one for dinner. I usually have turkeys in my yard 3 or 4 times each week, but have not seen them around now for about a week. There were 9 deer in my backyard today, 7 does and two bucks and I live in the city. For a good part of the day they lay under the pines at the edge of a wooded ravine which extends through my backyard.
All around the Alligator Lake here - much of it 'in the city' - there are turkeys and deer. My neighbor next over with a lake lot - complains about the deer eating her daylilies. I've had the turkeys in my yard on this side of the street - they are really skittish - and I've never been able to get a decent shot at them - open the door and they are hot footing it back to the swamp.
Turkey's - especially the wild ones - I've no use for except to enjoy in their wild - I would never kill one to eat unless I was starving. I do like turkey sandwiches - and so their tame relations are always in danger.
John...that is so cool! We have them here but I seldom see them. Someone up on the hill has some sort of large bird type thing they keep or let run wild IDK...might be some sort of chicken...I don't think they are turkeys. They make a very strange sound...very loud. Saw a few of them perched on a neighbors porch railing making a real racket yesterday...I suspect they fed them.
I have never eaten a wild turkey. How do they compare to the domestics?
Wild turkeys are not particularly good fliers, but they do the best they can at dusk and flap their way up into trees for protection during the night. I have watched groups of them settle into trees but squabble a bit for the best tree limbs to reside in. Once it is dark, you wouldn't even know they were there...
The most photogenic turkeys I
have seen were in Zion Natl Park, in the spring. All others have been bedraggled in comparison. This male, to impress the hens would put on an aggressive territorial display to stop the buses on the road up the canyon. The drivers would patient wait for tom to show off. After a while, tom would let the bus pass, and his female fans would feign indifference until the next bus came. Very amusing.
My friend is an avid turkey hunter, he shot one of the largest wild turkeys ever taken in Connecticut. He gave me the fan (tail feathers) I did a drawing from one of those feathers.
