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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.
Them too.![]()
2009 Lynskey R230 Houseblend - Brooks Team Pro
2007 Rivendell Bleriot - Rivet Pearl
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
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.
2011 Volagi Liscio
2010 Pegoretti Love #3 "Manovelo"
2011 Mercian Vincitore Special
2003 Eddy Merckx Team SC - stolen
2001 Colnago Ovalmaster Stars and Stripes
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!
Bad JuJu: Team TE Bianchista
"The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress." -Roth
Read my blog: Works in Progress
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 noticebut 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.