I Think They Should be Hiding

A few times a day, for the past week or so, a flock of turkeys appear at the bird feeder. They march up the path, often in single file, and peck away until Zoe [our dog] notices them and begs to be let out to give chase. They take off towards the woods, Zoe in pursuit, until they finally manage to take flight and end up in the trees where I must say they rather resemble basketballs. You would think they would hide at this tine of year, a lot of people would be thinking "Turkey dinner coming up."

off to the woods, 2014

Up in the trees, 2014

Turkey tracks on the walk, 2014

Confused tracks, 2014

Minus 29 C.

or - 20 F and I'm hibernating. It's so cold that all the tiny birds have puffed up to twice their normal size and when I looked back towards the woods I saw wild turkeys nesting in the trees.

Flying Turkeys

Just after I uploaded the last post, I went outside and the turkeys were back; ran for the camera hoping to get some shots of them in flight. Got a few of the take off [bottom photo] but a couple of hours later I was lucky, thanks to the wonder dog Zoe, to get them in full flight.

Beautiful feathers

Take off

Christmas Visitors

These turkeys were eating all around the bird feeder yesterday. Zoe had already chased them around the pond which was a very funny sight as she leaped through the snow trying to reach them and they, needing a fair bit of runway to launch themselves into fight, ended up in the trees looking rather like basketballs. Good thing they hid last week or the ending of this story could be quite different. Love the pattern and colors of their feathers. I am always surprised by how much blue is in the feathers.

Wild turkeys