Turkey Lover Boy
Turkeys in the north country have been feeling pretty romantic lately. The males are all pimped out and busy strutting their stuff. There’s an awful lot of flirting going on out in the open lately. The hay fields seem to be the favorite turkey hang out these days.
Normally the turkeys are wary enough to run off to the woods if you pull over to stop. Even now when they have urgent business on their minds it’s still hard not to disturb them. This is the typical scene from the road. This is ‘close’ – only a couple hundred yards but still too far for the 18x zoom to get a good focused shot of the turkeys.
Closer to home I caught sight of a male displaying only a few feet off the side of the road. On the other side were the ladies. I still find it hard to believe this guy was so involved with trying to impress the ladies that he didn’t bolt when I pulled over. I actually had enough time to get one shot of him displaying before he casually (for a turkey) crossed the road.
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This was one brave turkey. Instead of bolting for cover he was determined to follow after the now long gone ladies even if it meant crossing my path. I couldn’t have been more than 20 feet from him and he didn’t take flight.
To see more detail on the feathers click the images for a larger version (1024 x 768) or to use as desktop wallpaper. |
Like a teenage boy this turkey would throw all caution to the wind and risk death for a slim chance to roll in the hay with some grown up chick.
Men probably never change but some of us do stop that kind of behavior. Let’s face it, when we start to resemble a turkey from the neck up our chances are a whole hell of a lot less than slim.
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April 13th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Excellent turkey pictures. I’ve only seen one wild turkey in my whole life. That was last fall. That turkey does look like a few guys I’ve seen. He looks like he’s wearing a toupee on his head.
April 13th, 2010 at 10:49 pm
Great pics, and I love wild seeing wild turkeys. It reminds me of being in North Yorkshire about 10 years ago. It was during wild pheasant mating season. The girls would wait for traffic to go by, and run across the road. The boys didn’t even look for cars, their only concern was chasing the ladies, and it was actually very dangerous driving around the back roads at night, swerving to miss them! Couldn’t help but think the lasses were putting the lads in harms way on purpose
April 13th, 2010 at 10:51 pm
I guess some things are universal. I grew up in Nebraska hay country. Nuff said.
April 14th, 2010 at 9:29 am
As I said on someone’s blog (was it here? I think it was at Marnie’s, but who knows–you all post so much more than i do and a bear of little brain is easily confused) that wild turkeys are both so ugly and so pretty that it’s hard to know.
April 14th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Good for you! What a great picture. I always wonder how they do that with the tail feathers. Kind of like you could let your hair stand up in a Mohak on command.
April 14th, 2010 at 11:32 am
It is not so brave, but getting lost in front of you.
April 14th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
We have wild/feral turkeys here on the Island. I really think they are quite stupid birds as they will cross almost under the wheels of our vehicles, and will even go so far as to peck at the hubcaps on our car, if we happen to stop anywhere near them. Although in fairness, they seem to be concerned about their own. I saw about five birds standing around another which had been injured and was lying beside the road. Someone in front of me stopped to see if they could help the injured bird, I had to keep going, so don’t know what happened afterwards. I hate to see creatures hurt.
April 14th, 2010 at 7:30 pm
The plumage is amazing !
April 20th, 2010 at 12:39 am
You got some great shots! Toms are very stubborn up here as well when they’re on a mission…you have to either stop your car or have a collision.
April 26th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
I just read your house post and think I need to go back further to find the story about why there is a hole and a house perched on the edge of a BFH.
Do like your turkey pictures. Our new place in SC has a lot of turkey on it though I have not been able to get such great photos.
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