turkeys

The big excitement today came at about 1 o'clock in the afternoon. I was sitting in the livingroom, reading Grandmother's Secrets, the Ancient Rituals and Healing Power of Belly Dancing, by Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi, and enjoying a cup of coffee. Suddenly the dogs set up a racket and came to sit on the back deck, looking out at the cornfield to the south of us. There are large glass patio-doors at that end of the living room that extend all the way across that south wall. The view is spectacular.

In the field, the corn is gone now, but in the stubble, there were about 12 wild turkeys, slowly making their way across, in an informal line. They were busy munching as they went, I suppose. Occasionally, I saw one of the birds stretch up and flap it wings. It took them about an hour to make their way across the field, from west to east, a leisurely stroll the whole way. I didn't see where they ended up going because I had gone back to my book. I don't know what the dogs thought of it all, but after they made the initial announcement, they just sat on the deck and watched the parade.

The photos are of some footprints, I'm assuming a turkey's, that I took a couple of days ago at the bottom of our laneway, right by the mailbox! The prints are about 3 to 4 inches long. I guess the turkeys are pretty much living in this area lately. As I understood it, wild turkeys had been hunted to extinction in this area and were recently reintroduced. They seem to have made a success of it. I saw a flock of about 30 birds near here, as I was driving to my paying job recently.