“Hey! There are a bunch of wild turkeys walking up the driveway,” Eric called from the kitchen Sunday morning as he was making breakfast.
The tom turkeys are larger and more
colorful than the hens especially during
the breeding season in spring.
Cool! The turkeys are back! I hadn’t seen any in our woods for a couple of years so I was pretty excited to see some around again. When I went to look, I saw quite a few on the driveway and even more in the woods. The more I looked, the more I saw. There must have been at least 20 turkeys milling around. It was really exciting to see them.
Most of the turkeys were up in the woods scratching around in the dry leaves on the ground just like the large flock I saw in my parent’s woods up in Vermont. I’m sure they were hunting for acorns to eat. In Vermont, it was the beechnuts they were after but in our Virginia woods, acorns make up a lot of their diet – and boy, do we have acorns!
We had a good acorn crop last fall.
We had a good mast crop last fall with loads of acorns and hickory nuts falling to the ground. It was interesting to watch the turkeys flicking leaves up in the air in search of the acorns that were buried under them. When I was in Vermont last fall, we saw several large flocks of turkeys foraging in corn fields that had been harvested. I’m sure they were scavenging for corn seed that had dropped to the ground during the harvest. This makes an easy meal for them. Good thing it was after turkey season (and after Thanksgiving) or they would have been easy pickin’s for someone’s Sunday dinner!
We watched our turkeys for quite a long time. Breakfast was put on hold for a while as Eric got his camera and telephoto lens and started taking pictures. It was hard to get good shots though because he was shooting through the window but I’m quite certain that they would have run off if we had ventured outside to take pictures.
Colorful plumage on a male turkey
Turkeys may not be the most attractive birds in the world but they certainly do have beautiful plumage. When the sunlight hit the feathers of the big toms, they were very iridescent; sometimes reflecting a shimmering bronze and other times flashing red, green, or even blue depending on where and how the light hit them and how their feathers were fluffed. Very cool! Their heads kind of ruin the effect though, being featherless and gnarly with all kinds of protuberances sticking out all over – especially the males. But, I suppose beauty is in the eyes of the beholder – the hens must see them differently!
What are you lookin’ at?
Eventually we got our breakfast but those turkeys ended up spending the whole morning and part of the afternoon foraging in our woods. They must have found the mother lode of acorns and other delicacies out there! I saw four turkeys in the woods on Monday morning but haven’t seen any since then.
I hope we see them again at mating time which usually starts around March. It would be really neat to be able to hear the toms gobbling to attract the hens and then see them strut around all puffed up with their tail feathers beautifully fanned out during their courtship ritual in their attempt to persuade the females that they are the top banana.
I’ve never heard a wild turkey gobble but I’ve read that you can hear the call up to a mile away! Fascinating!
Until next time – Happy Gardening!
A group of hens mingles around while a male watches over
in the background.
Where is the Easy Gardening show.I miss it.
I miss the Easy Gardening show too! Please try to come back!!!
We were lucky enough to see a flock of twenty or so at our place a few years ago. There was one “Tom”, very big. And he was showing off to the ladies and gobbling. In the winter I take screens out of our windows so I can get more clear shots when the wildlife come to visit us. One thing the turkeys like to do is come out in a drizzly rain day. Keep your eyes peeled then. Lovely pictures.
The turkeys were back again late this morning! I took more pictures. Maybe they’ll be better; I took them from windows without screens – maybe I just need to wash my windows! I hope they stick around until spring.
We once thought they were very interesting and beautiful as well a few years ago when they started arriving in bulk in the State of Maine. but now they are dreaded…. They are the biggest carrier of Ticks… There are even reports that the moose in the woods are dying of Lyme disease from the deer ticks that they carry. The moose are getting infected with them… So…. We now shoo them out of the yard and hate to see them come….
Thanks for your comments. I have read about problems with an abundance of wild turkeys in Maine, not just as carriers of ticks but also doing a lot of damage to crops. I’m sure this is also happening in other parts of their range. They can also be in direct competition with deer for food sources like acorns. Wednesday while the turkeys were in the front yard, a small group of deer was wandering through the woods behind the house!