Showing posts with label Wild Turkey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wild Turkey. Show all posts

Saturday, October 12, 2019

New house, new birds...

It's been a long time since I posted...so long I almost forgot how to do it, but it all came back quickly, thank goodness! Where the heck was I? The same place as always, but I was so busy I didn't have time for birds (I can't believe I just said that, but it's true!). I was spending a lot of time getting our house ready to sell, fighting neck pain that prevented me from carrying my camera or binoculars, and riding and taking care of my horse, but now I have my priorities straight and birds once again are front and center -- where they should be for heaven's sake.

At the end of May Rick and I moved to a new (old) home with woods and fields around it. The new habitat meant new yard birds...eastern bluebirds, turkeys, phoebes, barn swallows, eastern wood peewees, and oven birds...all birds I never saw or heard in our yard at our old house! We spent the summer getting used to the house, making friends with our new neighbors, eating outside, and listening and looking for new birds to add to our yard list.  I think the bluebirds and turkeys are our favorites. It's really exciting to look out and see a flock (or "rafter") of turkeys weaving their way through the tall grass in the yard...

A turkey in dew-soaked grass foraging in our backyard in the morning light.



...and such a cute little rafter you three are! 

Prairie-dogging turkeys...gotta love them! 



Saturday, March 31, 2012

Gobble, gobble, gobble...wait, it's not Thanksgiving, it's spring!

...but spring is the perfect time to listen for gobbling Toms and witness their incredible courtship displays, and thanks to conservation and restoration efforts, it's much easier to find them in the woods now...

A male Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) walks in full regalia as he puffs his feathers up in a courtship display. He really does have an air of royalty as he glides through the brown leaves, wings dragging the ground, and his iridescent green, bronze and gold feathers catching the light perfectly for maximum effect.

In early spring, when winter's leaves are still brown and crackle underfoot, male turkeys start strutting for females. It's an image we usually think of at Thanksgiving, but spring is when you usually see it!

...every emotion a turkey has shows on his face where "mood colors" of bright red, blue and white can change in seconds when hens or other toms are around (source: "Birds of Forest, Yard, & Thicket," by John Eastman, pg. 7).

Turkey lingo! The skin that hangs from a turkey's beak is a snood. The bumpy, wart-like projections on the skin...caruncles, and the crazy rope of feathers that hangs from his chest...a beard! What's a group of turkeys called? ...a rafter or a gang (source: USGS).

This gobbler (male turkey) had 6 hens in his harem, but they weren't interested in his strutting and displaying, and most, like this hen, walked away non-plussed.

Turkeys roost in trees at night. They also will fly up to trees when startled (or when they hear a camera shutter click...). This female flew effortlessly up to branches about 30 feet off the ground. She remained there for about 10 minutes before deciding to fly back down and join the foraging flock.

Courting Toms take their job seriously. I watched this male and the six hens in his harem for over 45 minutes. Only once did he let his feathers down, and that was only for a second or two. While the females foraged and ate seeds, the male never once tried to eat. This behavior was confirmed in Eastman's "Birds of Forest, Yard, & Thicket," pg 7, where he writes, "Belligerent toms strut and display in spring, sometimes hardly feeding for days at a time."

I love the return of the Wild Turkey. When I was a kid, turkeys were not in any woods I ever played in. For me they were birds that showed up on Thanksgiving decorations and only took the form of a male in courtship display. According to "The Birds of Ohio," by Bruce Peterjohn (pg. 143), Wild Turkeys were extirpated from Ohio by 1900, so no wonder I had never seen one in the wild, but in February of 1956, Wild Turkeys were released in southeast Ohio. In the 80s they were released in the glaciated counties, and in the 90s, in the central and western counties. For the past three years I have heard and seen them regularly along the Little Miami River. Before then, I saw them once about eight years ago along the bike trail. They are skittish birds and can disappear into the brush and woods with amazing speed. I saw this rafter of turkeys in Tennessee on the Cumberland Plateau in the woods behind my mother- and father-in-law's home last week when Matty and I headed down for spring break.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving!

Painting #85, A Happy Wild Turkey on Thanksgiving Day...
Oil pastel
12x16 Arches Cold Pressed 140 Lb Paper

(Same painting...just showing the part the scanner cut off.)

My scanner can only handle a 9x12 sheet of paper. I guess I either have to upgrade the scanner or start photographing these larger paintings. (I only have 15 paintings to go for the challenge!) Wild Turkeys are really funky birds to draw--crazy feathers...crazy colors...crazy patterns...a crazy form...and a floppy, speckled wing. It was fun...

Wishing everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!!