Turkeys in the mist

[WV Sawmiller]

   About 8:30 this morning we heard a gosh awful racket outside and looked to find the hillside above the house was covered in turkeys. Two big gobblers in full strut bring up the rear. The morning fog had not lifted yet. They were taking advantage of these last 2 warming days and the damp ground is oozing with worms and such. It is good to see this many made it through the winter. Those 2 gobblers are obviously feeling their oats. I never saw them break strut the whole time they were out there.


 Try counting them. Its even worse when they are moving.


 Bringing up the rear.

[Roxie]

26?   Went crossed eyed trying to decide if there was one at the base of that tree.  

[mike_belben]

*POW*

24 or 25 now, dependin how ya look at it.   ;D

[WV Sawmiller]

   Your guess is as good as mine. Is that a turkey behind the willow tops? Is that a rock or stump on the hillside? Can't tell in the fog. Also not all were in the frame. Some were to the right and upper rh corner. It was a sizable group for us although I have seen 75-100 in a big hayfield about 8 miles up the road on the way to my son's house.

[FLPINERAT]

Cool!

[WV Sawmiller]

   Well, I guess the ladies drove the boys off. They came down in the yard a yew minutes ago by themselves. Landed in the access road to my pasture, fed to within 5 yards of my truck, walked the fenceline and decided not worth the effort to crawl under so flew back across the road to my neighbor's pasture. 


 I may have to start hunting them from my truck in the yard.


 This one was eye-balling my old smoker pretty close and decided maybe he better go feed elsewhere.

[AZ_builder]

When's turkey season in your area? Here we get a spring hunt in April/May then a late fall hunt. I've always wanted to hunt turkey out east.

[WV Sawmiller]

   That is when our season runs too. I go a time or during the 4 weeks of season here but don't get too serious about it and am not a very good turkey caller. As often as not I get foxes or bobcats looking for a dying hen when I try. Some years we have a week of Fall season too in October. In the fall hens are sometimes legal too but in the Spring it is only Gobblers. I see a few every year around my deer feeders. If they come out while I am there I discretely shoo them off so they don't eat up all my deer feed. We had a hen nest above our house a few years back and she would do the broken wing act to lure us away if we got to close. I knew quail did that but did not know turkeys did. Kildeers at my son's place do the same and I have seen Ibis in Mongolia do the same and I believe Ostrich in Africa will - I know the young Ibis and Ostriches will lay down and hide like quail.

[WV Sawmiller]

    Well, the girls are back today. I watched them come down the pasture to around my old goat barn. There were 7-8 of them that came to the back gate about 40 yards from the house. I spotted a big fox squirrel with them. We noticed last year most of the time when there were groups of turkeys there would be a squirrel with them. I don't know if it was for protection or if the turkeys exposed nuts and such they did not eat but the squirrel did. In Africa it was common to see impalas and baboons hanging out together for mutual defense. The baboons were very alert with sentries posted and such. I think the squirrel may have figured that out too.


 These were almost to the yard. There are 2-3 times this many still scattered down in the woods.


 Thi big fox squirrel (on grape vine) ran out of the group and perched here.


 Here's one of the turkeys about 3' under him and another fixing to be.

[mike_belben]

I use a mouth diaphram for turkey clucks and purrs when stalking deer on days when the leaves are too crunchy to stay quiet.  I dont have the patience to sit in a stand with the same old view and really like exploring a lot more.  If i dont see a deer i went hiking and just happened to have a rifle.  It doesnt feel as bad as sitting all day getting skunked. 

Anyways, turkeys make a ton of racket raking through the leaves and dont spook the deer, so i just copy that travel sound.  Step step, rake leaves, step step, rake, cluck purr step rake.  I bump bedded deer then know where to set up next time.  I consider bumping just a means to collect info.  Like a forward observer in combat, except deer dont shoot back.

[starmac]

I cut firewood for a living, or at least to see how long it would take to starve,in the Capitans one year in New Mexico.
Turkeys were thick that year down there, and one flock would come down the mountain right by my camp, just as the sun was coming up every morning. I never wanted to shoot them, but really enjoyed watching them.

One evening about dark, I was crusing a new area I was going to start cutting in and it got dark on me, walking through the woods back to the pickup, I walked under a roost tree, and spooked a few thousand off the roost, it took a second to realize what kind of boogie man was after me.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I used to hunt further afield than I do now and often would come back home in the dark and scare turkeys off the roost. When you do that if you come back to the same area the next day you will find turkeys all over the area yelping to get back together. Old timers used to always try to break up a flock. I knew several who said back in the day if they could shoot the old hen they could sit right there and call back and shoot every one of the young ones. They used to like to use a dog to break up the flock and I have heard some wizened old turkey hunters tell me to shoot just to break up the group if nothing else.

  I was working a project in extreme western PA and every morning I'd pass a turkey carcass hanging in a fork in the top of a tall poplar tree. I always figured something spooked him off the roost in the dark and he killed himself flying into the fork in the dark.

   Many times I have seen and heard them go to roost and they make a gosh awful racket crashing into the limbs as they fly up and shift from limb to limb and such. I often try to go up near dusk in the Spring season and see if I can hear them fly up so I know where to go hunt the next morning. Also an old gobbler will often gobble when he flies up to the roost. I killed one many years ago that had roosted in the holler above the house and we had a full moon. He gobbled all night long and I don't think my son slept all night. We got up and sneaked above him. Sean sat down at the head of the holler and said he was going to hunt there. I sneaked around further and actually spotted him on the roost but before I could shoot him he pitched down. He'd answer every time my son called. Finally he came by my spot trying to sneak around Sean and I busted him. I figured Sean would go get on another bird as there were several more close by who were gobbling. I walked down the holler and found Sean in the pasture. When I got to him he looked like he was about to cry and asked "Why did you shoot my turkey?" I told him "Because he got in range". Seemed like a reasonable explanation to me.

[Chuck White]

I remember when it was extremely rare to see a wild turkey and now, they're everywhere, especially in farm country!

[mike_belben]

Too much fast food on main street.

[nativewolf]

I remember when it was extremely rare to see a wild turkey and now, they're everywhere, especially in farm country!

You can thank your taxpayer dollars.  It was a huge effort by many govt agencies Fed/States to reintroduce turkey, regulate hunting more effectively, and monitor.  People sometimes complain about tax's and lazy govt people but it is good to acknowledge the efforts of the really dedicated folks that believed in their jobs and did a wonderful job of it.  Of course, it helped that demographic changes came along at the same time and many small farmers left farming and so we had a resurgence of woodlands. Without the govt agencies we would not see nearly as many.

[Magicman]

Don't overlook the efforts of the National Wild Turkey Federation.

[WV Sawmiller]

    Ditto that Lynn. My old Wildlife Professor Dr. James Earl Kennamer is/was very active with them. He was my professor at AU but I remember him talking about some of his exploits in Mississippi as a grad student IIRC. One tale was trying to raise a record sized copperhead and getting in trouble when he told the cleaning guy to be on the look-out for him as he had gotten out. I think the wildlife dept at Old Miss Mississippi State had to do their own office cleaning after that.

[Magicman]

Yup, I chuckled when I read Ole Miss.  ;D

[WV Sawmiller]

Lynn,

   Yeah I caught myself on that after I first posted it. Dr. K would probably not appreciate such mistakes and casting aspersions on his good name that way. :D He really was a very good professor.

[Ljohnsaw]

We have huge flocks of turkeys all over the place out here.  It doesn't matter if it is in town or out in the country, busy street or around a fountain at a business.  I was finishing up pouring concrete at my buddy's house.  There are lots of deer and turkeys roaming around all day.  As I was getting ready to leave, two turkeys walk past the back of my truck.  One sees his reflection in my rear bumper.  He passed back and forth, faster and faster looking at himself.  Finally he stopped and went around the side looking for the bird.  Went all the way around the front (painted bumper) and looked disappointed that he couldn't find the bird.  Then he saw his reflection in the paint on the side of my truck and started all over again!  Stupid birds...

[WV Sawmiller]

   I took a bale of hay up on the 4 wheeler to feed the horse and mule and the two gobblers were behind my old concrete goat barn. They ran the fence line while I did some chores then when i started back they were in the middle of the field. I guess they had run the fenceline but weren't smart enough to fly over it. They looked to be about 2-3 year old birds with 6-8 inch beards. When I got too close to them on the way back they finally jumped up and flew over the fence. I have had friends run them in to a fence and catch them like a chicken. Most who did so said they would never do it again. Like my Uncle who blinded a bobcat in the car lights one night and sneaked around and caught him. He said he'd never do that again either. Another one of life's lessons.

[starmac]

We used to have 2 big old turkeys, and unless you herded them into the chicken house at night, they were considered coyote bait. The chickens would always go in and roost themselves, but the turkeys never learned.
When my youngest daughter was 7 or 8 I told her to go put the turkeys in and shut the door, the turkeys had already jumped up on the back of the lean to roof, so she just grabbed one leg of each bird  and hauled them around to the front. It was quite the show, so I ask how she liked getting scratched up like she did, her coment was it was like grabbing two helicopters. lol

[WV Sawmiller]

   I have a friend here who was grouse hunting with a Brittney Spaniel and it ran up on a bunch of turkeys and chased down a big turkey gobbler and grabbed it by the tail. He said it looked like a plane doing touch and goes landings. The gobbler would get 10-12 ft up in the air with the dog then crash down and repeat. He said it did that several times before most of the tail feathers pulled out and the dog was left with a mouth full of feathers while the bird flew away. I'd love to have had a video of that.

[Magicman]

My Dad chased one into a briar patch with his tractor.  Hopped off of the tractor and walked the briers down and caught that rascal.  They had it for supper that night. 

[starmac]

Lordy, I doubt I could make any sort of usable video, while rolling on the ground laughing.

[thecfarm]

I had about 4 turkeys for 2 mornings eating what was left over from me feeding the deer. Which is not much.The 3rd morning I had 20-25 turkeys. This went on one other year too. But that year,the turkeys found the food as soon as I started to feed the deer. This year,the turkeys have not even been here a week.

[WV Sawmiller]

   We got up late this morning and the first thing my wife noticed was a turkey trapped between my backyard chain link fence and my pasture fence. I have a marshy area from a spring runoff that is too soft to walk in so I fenced it off in a triangle shape. The turkey evidently crawled under my back gate that is 5-6 inches above the ground on one end, walked into the mouth of the triangle all the way to the funnel shaped tip at the other end but could not squeeze through. She was about 15-20 yards from our bedroom window. we watched her for 15 minutes or so as she got more and more excited and anxious trying to get out. She would walk past the willows nearly to the opening then turn around and walk right back into the confined area. I can't see a beard and it may be a big hen or a small jake. It is so dark I am inclined to believe it is a jake.


 This is as far as it can go. It ran into this point several times.


 It ran this fence line many times looking for an opening to crawl under. Could easily have jumped up and flown over but they don't do that unless pushed real hard.


 Turned around and headed back to the corner again.


 You begin to wonder if it is learning impaired.


 Yep. Anybody walking up from behind could have chased it into the corner and caught it.

    My wife just commented - "See what all those city kids are missing by not getting up to see stuff like this."

[Old Greenhorn]

We get them around here like rats when they are in the mood to browse the area. I get tired of culling the photos from my trail cam by the mill. Then, all of a sudden, they are gone for months on end. One of my cats will get a week or more of good play time with one of their feathers. Have to go find some more for him.


 

[mike_belben]

My Dad chased one into a briar patch with his tractor.  Hopped off of the tractor and walked the briers down and caught that rascal.  They had it for supper that night.  

Now thats being a man.  Tackle your dinner in a thicket. 

[WV Sawmiller]

OG,

  We had an old bobtailed housecat who used to get out and stalk the turkeys above the house. They would let him get within about 5 yards but no closer. It looked like he was herding them around the hillside at times. I never saw one attack him or him try to catch one although I always hoped he would. I figured it would be a real site watching a 4-5 lb cat and a 13-15 lb turkey fighting.

  Several years later we raised a little doe whose mother got killed by a car. We'd milk the goats and feed it to Spot. She'd get milk all over her face and Morris, our big yellow tom cat who was about the same size as Spot, would lick it off so they grew up as friends. When Spot was about 35-40 lbs she'd be browsing around the pasture near the house and Morris would see her and go into stalking mode and sneak up on her like a leopard stalking an impala. Spot would see him out of the corner of her eye. When he got close enough he'd charge and she'd kick a hoof past his ear and they'd run a few circles around the place then stop, sniff noses and go their separate ways. It was neat to watch. Spot was always free to come and go and she'd go play with the wild deer then come home for her bottle. That year we had an antlerless season and I walked up the hill and a little yearling jumped up and I shot her in the head. Then Spot jumped up about 30 yards away. I kept an orange collar on her so everyone would know she was tame. I had not seen her and felt real guilty for shooting her friend in front of her but she followed me home and I gave her an apple or fortune cookie and she forgave me.

[mike_belben]

 


Youve had an interesting life bud.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Yeah and I have the scars and many pictures to prove it. Up to and including being charged by a Silverback gorilla in the Central African Republic and chasing down a Black mamba in Ethiopia so my wife could take his picture.

[thecfarm]

Some wheres I have a picture of a wild turkey in with my tame ones. It flew in and flew out.

[WV Sawmiller]

   My son and his buddy when teenagers went up to a friends place during Spring season. They came home around noon so I asked them where was the turkey. They answered "He'd have come if he could." I asked what they meant and they said they got on an old gobbler that would answer every time they'd cluck but he would not come so they decided to try to sneak up on him. After about an hour of careful stalking with periodic clucking and answers they finally found him locked up in a local farmers pen.

[WV Sawmiller]

They're back! We've been invaded by turkeys again. A little hen flew down and landed in the pasture next to my yard about 9:45 am this morning. She walked the fence line pecking and scratching. I thought she was going to walk under the low spot under the gate at one point. I checked the back yard and neighbors pasture across the road but did not see the rest.


 Her head is between the post and gate to my yard


 Standing behind my well house - an old Spring house now used to house my pump and water filter and such.


 Okay, lets mosey down toward the barn and see what we find down there.

 Suddenly the rest of the flock joined in. Some in the yard, some in the pasture. I guess they were higher up on the mountainside in Sonny's pasture across the road. They pitch up, fly a few strokes and lock their wings and glide like a quail. There were two nice gobblers and about a dozen hens. The gobblers were at the rear like they were herding the rest.


 Gobbler in the yard.


 Gobbler in the pasture behind the well house.


 More detail on my yard gobbler.


 Sort of half strut


 Full strut now - he actually gobbled right after this shot but I did not get the picture. Probably scared Sampson half to death.


 Both gobblers and couple of brazen hens


 And the rest of the flock head down towards the barn too.

 My wife sneaked around to the front porch and got a few nice pictures with her big Canon camera and telephoto lens which have lots more detail She will add them to her file and maybe sell a few or enter them in next months local photo competition with the neighboring photo club. She repeatedly says she can't see how people live in the city and miss all this.

Edit/Add-on: Well, I guess them hens were not as cooperative as they expected and the boys came back alone a few minutes later.


 Back behind the well house


 Okay, Dang them women anyway! Who needs 'em! At least now both gobblers are in the pasture anyway. Heading on up the hill to the spring to see what tasty tidbit washed up lately.

[Old Greenhorn]

I work in a TSA secured facility. Wednesday morning when I got to work there was a plant wide email waiting for me about a 'stranger' attempting to gain access to the facility and everybody should be aware and on the lookout. The photo supplied was indeed a tom turkey that had been pecking on office windows. Well, about 1/2 hour later I looked out my office window to see the suspect strutting his stuff for a hen that was out of view. After this display, he wooed the hen in and then led her around the building picking on his reflection in all the low office windows he came across. I did my duty as a dedicated (and bored) employee and notified our TSA security Officer so she could look into it and call for backup. (She really needs something to do.)


 

 

 

[GeorgeFindlay]

Turkeys migrated north from Maine into New Brunswick, Canada ~15 years ago. They're established here, and now there's a debate about opening a hunting season.

Here's some in my yard last week.

 

  

[WV Sawmiller]

   We are still seeing turkeys here pretty often. I went out to clean some catfish Tuesday and an old hen was just outside the backyard fence. While I cleaned fish I could hear her up in the pasture cackling excitedly. I guess something got to close to her nest. An hour or so later I heard her clucking on the other side of the pasture.


 We still have these 2 young gobblers (Beards about 8" long) showing up together a couple times a week, especially after a rain. I took this picture last week of them. This morning about 6:30 we were rudely awakened, I assume it was one of these 2, by a confused young gobbler out by my woodshed putting on a show. He gobbled, he yelped, he clucked and he purred. I guess somebody forgot to tell him mating season ended last month - well, it was supposed to. Maybe he knows something we don't know. It had rained during the night and I guess he was turning over the pieces of bark getting worms where I had cut firewood.

  Last night my wife took the garbage out (I should write that rare event down on my calendar) after putting a bunch of fish trimmings in it after she cut and packaged the 33 lb Flathead catfish from Wednesday morning's catch. On the way back she heard a bunch of squeaking and such and came in and told me we had a fawn in the pasture. I went out to collect some nightcrawlers and shined the light up in the pasture and saw the old doe nervously walking along the wood line looking our way then up by the gate about 40 yards away I saw the eyes of the fawn. I left them alone and collected my worms and heard the fawn bleating several minutes till they got further up the hill.

  A customer about half a mile up the road stopped by yesterday and was telling us another neighbor came by on his way to work yesterday and saw a big bear in her garbage can. She said they did have to pick up scattered garbage when they got up. Life is seldom dull around here.
 

[thecfarm]

The chick are hatched. Look about only a few days old. I was digging an overgrown place and saw a turkey come out of the bushes. I got a bucket load and left. Came back the next day to do some more digging and the turkey come out of the same place. Must be a nest close by. I got off the tractor and found it. Never saw one before. I got out of there and did something else. I will keep checking on it each day.

[WV Sawmiller]

    These 5 have been hanging out together. I saw them in the pasture about 60-70 yards above the house then 30 minutes or so later I looked out and they were in the front yard. There are 3 hens (One not shown in the picture) and 2 jakes. 


 Second and 4th are jakes - note stubby little beards about 3" long. The ones with the light blue heads are the hens.

[thecfarm]

I see 4-5 turkeys just about every day when I come home. We will go somewheres and come home and we will see them. Don't matter if we come back at 10am or 2pm. I come home at 6:30pm and they are mostly in the same field.
I have no idea what happened to the chicks. We saw them for a while and then none. As we drive around we use to see small turkeys. So I know did not go from chick size to full size in one month. :D 

[Ron Scott]

Coyotes?

[thecfarm]

Could of been a fox too. Them coyotes was just howling last night. Sometimes they are close and sometimes a long ways off.