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Thread: Turkeys!

  1. #16
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Upstate of SC
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    197

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    Wild turkeys can fly close to 50 miles per hour. They're omnivorous and will eat from bird feeders when available. There isn't much I don't know about Meleagris gallopavo, and the only thing I haven't seen one do is swim, though I've seen rare photos of that.

    It's currently their mating season. While XY's can gobble year-round, peak gobbling activity is in the spring. They have a complex vocabulary. Only the males gobble & strut (well, sometimes I have seen hens strut). Hen vocalizations include mating yelps, clucks, purrs, and something called cutting. Juvies do a shrill whistle called a kee-kee.

    I've seen them at dawn come sailing off the side of a mountain in Sonora, Mexico. The wind whistling in their wings...it sounds like a bomb dropping.

    It's making me misty-eyed as we speak.

    Ugly? It's in the eye of the beholder.

    Great photos. Thanks for sharing; it made my day.
    Last edited by SlowButSteady; 03-31-2008 at 01:19 PM.
    Cycling is the new running.

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  2. #17
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    Illinois
    Posts
    3,151
    Quote Originally Posted by Queen View Post
    How cool!

    We had a roaming band of wild turkeys here, they wandered through this one neighborhood and everybody loved them...then they got bold and started chasing cats/dogs/and finally people. The Dept. of Natural Resources had to come and get them since they were chasing people down the street.
    Yup, and it got the Mayor a gift of a bottle of Wild TUrkey at one point... I saw them a few times out riding, but they didn't come after me. They had gone after some folks, though on bikes it didn't matter.

  3. #18
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Bendemonium
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    9,673
    Quote Originally Posted by snapdragen View Post
    Doh! No picking on the mod when she hasn't had her coffee yet!!


    ***visualizing turkeys on bikes***
    Here I thought you were talking about the 2-legged spandex variety using the bike trail for race training, mowing down the young'uns on their Bigwheels.
    Frends know gud humors when dey is hear it. ~ Da Crockydiles of ZZE.

  4. #19
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    Folsom CA
    Posts
    5,667
    Them too.

    2009 Lynskey R230 Houseblend - Brooks Team Pro
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  5. #20
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    around Seattle, WA
    Posts
    3,238
    And don't forget that the Wild Turkey was almost our national bird!

    Instead we got the scanvanger Bald Eagle. Good looks, nasty eating habits.
    Beth

  6. #21
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Marin County CA
    Posts
    5,936
    Quote Originally Posted by Starfish View Post
    I wonder if their "stuff" is anything like what the geese leave everywhere up here?
    Oh yeah - he left a nice gift on the deck rail just before he fanned out his tail feathers.

    I don't hear them this afternoon. Perhaps they have moved on.

    SlowbutSteady - I had to go to your profile to figure out why you were such a turkey expert!! I get it now.

    Our wild turkeys are not afraid of people. They take their sweet time getting out of the way of your bike. I remember coming across a gang of them when I was trail running once. I'd only seen them from a bike, and from the ground they were alarmingly tall. None of them chased me, though.
    Sarah

    When it's easy, ride hard; when it's hard, ride easy.


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  7. #22
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    the foggy wetlands,los osos,ca
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    2,860
    We just got back from camping here in our county. And there were so many turkeys! They were waking us up every morning! Those turkeys!
    Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.
    > Remember to appreciate all the different people in your life!

  8. #23
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Florida panhandle
    Posts
    1,498
    Quote Originally Posted by maillotpois View Post
    Our wild turkeys are not afraid of people. They take their sweet time getting out of the way of your bike. I remember coming across a gang of them when I was trail running once. I'd only seen them from a bike, and from the ground they were alarmingly tall. None of them chased me, though.
    On the rail-trail I used to ride on, there were a few wild turkeys that were chasing cyclists occasionally one spring. I saw them a few times, but they never chased me. Maybe they were the males and they only chased away other males.
    Bad JuJu: Team TE Bianchista
    "The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress." -Roth
    Read my blog: Works in Progress

  9. #24
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    Trondheim, Norway
    Posts
    1,469
    Quote Originally Posted by maillotpois View Post
    Oh yeah - he left a nice gift on the deck rail just before he fanned out his tail feathers.

    I don't hear them this afternoon. Perhaps they have moved on.

    SlowbutSteady - I had to go to your profile to figure out why you were such a turkey expert!! I get it now.

    Our wild turkeys are not afraid of people. They take their sweet time getting out of the way of your bike. I remember coming across a gang of them when I was trail running once. I'd only seen them from a bike, and from the ground they were alarmingly tall. None of them chased me, though.
    I don't think it's their leavings that are the biggest problem. After all, that's good fertilizer. It's a bigger problem for gardeners that they dig. They can make pretty big bare, dusty patches in a garden. But if your lot is more woodsy (as it seems from the pictures) that may not be so much of an issue. Watch for "leking" (mating) behaviours! That's really a cool sight. The males will fan out their tails, arch their heads back to show off their colored wattles, and strut slowly about. From a distance they seem to glide like model sailing ships (Portuguese man-o-war style). Meanwhile the females pretend not to notice but they must send some kinda signal when they walk away into the woods, since the males seem to know which ones to follow. I loved watching that in the Spring back when my Mom lived on the slope of Mt. Taylor in Sonoma Co. My morning hike up Warrington Rd. took me past a leking site. I'd also see bats, migrating newts, roosting buzzards, lots of deer, once a coyote ... That was such a lovely hike!
    Half-marathon over. Sabbatical year over. It's back to "sacking shirt and oat cakes" as they say here.

 

 

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