More Turkey Tales

It was a picture perfect weekend at Hasty Brook. I drove up Friday morning, Art and the kids would come up Saturday morning. The first thing I noticed driving up the dirt road toward our place was that the utility company had de-brushed the roadside under the power lines. It was a swath about thirty feet deep. As I turned the car into the driveway I noticed three brown lumps walking my way. I got out of the car to take the driveway chain down and the lumps kept coming. Turkeys! A large female and her two not-so-tiny polts(?). I slowly moved back to stand inside the open car door. It didn't seem they could see me or didn't find me a threat because the walked right up and stood, pecking at the grasshoppers right at my feet. Of course my camera was on the seat but I had my phone in my pocket so I slowly snapped a few terrible pictures. The turkeys were actually too close. By now the horse flies were really chewing my ankles so I shoo'd the turkeys along so I could get moving. They toodled off into the woods and I thought that was that. About an hour later after I had set up the camper I walked back down the long driveway, looking around at the changes from two weeks ago when I was last there. Under a stand of maples I found several turkey feathers on the ground and wondered if maybe the turkeys were using the maples for their night time roost. Back at the campsite with the feeders filled and my favorite camp chair set in the shade, my binoculars and camera in my lap and a TALL Malibu Rum with pineapple OJ in the cup holder, I glanced back toward the road and there they came. The sun was headed down and they were back lit but I could easily see the jumping grasshoppers that they were devouring. As the sun dropped lower I heard the female's wings as she flew up- into the maples! Can you see her?

Eventually after a few calls from mom, the two young turkeys flew up to join her for the night. Before the mosquitoes got too bad I spread some seed mix on the ground around the clearing- mostly white millet for the sparrows with some peanuts for the jays and chipmunks. I settled in the camper with a pile of blankets (it got down to 46 degrees over night!) and a book and went to sleep to the sound of veeries and hermit thrushes. I awoke at 0530 to a sound I'd never heard before. Slowly grabbing my camera I scanned the clearing- nothing. Then I heard it again, right out the window. The turkeys were back- right outside the window. Mom would call to the youngsters constantly, an ascending "yiipe". The really wonderful sound was the bubbling twitter of the two young birds answering her.

The rest of these pictures were taken through the window screens and are quite fuzzy.

"Wake up in there!"

The young birds were constantly in motion.

They seemed to enjoy the seed mix- especially the peanuts. They stayed in the clearing for about an hour and a half scratching at the ground, eating seeds and grasshoppers. They also ate some unknown red berries and drank from the dog bowl. I didn't see them again over the rest of the weekend but I'll be watching for them.