Wild Turkeys

[Lambchop]

Just wanted to let everyone know I saw some this week. Pretty cool. It looked to be a flock of 5 or 6 females foraging along the edge of pine woods along I-75 between Sarasota and Port Charlotte. They were nibbling at some shrubby undergrowth.

[djm]

It's terrible when people don't recycle their glass bottles properly.



djm

[chas]

I saw a female with about a dozen chicks following her in the woods at my brother's place in New Hampshire this past summer. I hear them all the time up there, but this was the first time I'd seen more than one or two at a time. Very cool.

[Jack]

Gobble gobble!

[brewerpaul]

Wild turkeys are really cool birds.
In my old home we had woods out back. I was out there in the pre-dawn hour one time doing Tai Chi when I started to hear some really weird noises up in the pine trees. First in one place, then another and another. Suddenly, a part of the dark shadows detatched itself and flew off deeper into the woods: it was a wild turkey which had been roosting in the trees overnight! I had always assumed that they hung out on the ground at night. All in all about 8 of them flew away like that. Amazing experience.

[WyoBadger]

Nifty birds. Very clever, too, from what I hear. Very far removed from domestic turkeys, which I understand are too dumb to do things like reproduce and breathe.

There are a few wild turkeys up around Sheridan. I used to see them now and then on the edges of town when I lived up there, but they mostly stay out of site.

Tom

[tansy]

i saw a huge tom last week. They are abundant in the woods here(and in the capitol and court system).
Once i counted 27 , at the edge of a field.
they are a little less shy than they once were, due to humanoid over population and expansion.
i also see bald eagles almost daily around the water.

[mutepointe]

You are more than welcome to take a drive through southern West Virginia where wild turkeys are making a comeback. When I drive the rural backroads, I often stop for flocks of 20 to 30 wild turkeys stopped on the road. I don't have the heart to barrel through them to see if they'll get out of the way in time. They are pretty.

[CHasR]

We had a prankster in Philly who used to let loose a couple of wild turkeys about a week or so before Thanksgiving.
Depending on which neighborhood they wandered into, they were either caught and cooked, flattened by a semi, or became family pets.

[DCrom]

Our local county park (Almaden Quicksilver County Park, in SW San Jose) is home to several flocks. Their range seems to vary by season and time of day - sometimes we see them almost every day, sometimes it's weeks between sightings (though the flock that hangs around the park's SE entrance rarely strays - I think the owners of the riding stable across the road feed them).

It's fun to watch them over the course of a year - hen flocks in the early spring, hens and chicks later on, then watching the chicks grow. The flock on our end of the park always seems to disappear a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, then reappear a week or so later. I've always suspected they've heard my wife's speculation about how they'd taste compared to their supermarket cousins.

[dwest]

Wife loves them. She uses a 20 ga. and about three different calls. I get stuck cleaning up.

[rebl_rn]

We have a lot around here. On the drive to my church - through the Kettle Moraine State Forest - I pass an open field where there's often a large flock (or whatever a group of turkeys is called). A few times I have passed a turkey "jogging" along the side of the road.

A couple of years ago, there was a gaggle of Canada geese hanging out in the field near where I work. And when you looked, there in the midst of all the geese was a turkey - just hanging out with the geese I guess. They were around for a week or two, the turkey was with them the whole time. It was a little strange, but everyone seemed happy!

[cowtime]

They are everywhere around here.

[dwest]

They were imported into NA by Irish monks around 460.

[CHasR]

man, you country people...
If I see anymore than 2 turkeys at one time they better be frozen, or I'm callin animal control.