Hello from Turkey Territory
(February 2010)
We listened to a chorus of a whole flock of turkeys down the hill for hours on Wednesday. Gobble, gobble & more gobbles. Sometimes they got really loud. They fluffed out their feathers, fanned their tails & paraded all around. The more fluffed out they were, the louder they got. There were men working inside the neighbor's garage too. In fact one man would make the gobble sound back at them but they were not about to leave. There looked to be almost two dozen of them.
I finally figured out they apparently could see themselves reflected in the windows in the new garage, which are about at the same height as they were since the garage sits on a surface dug out of the hill. They were really admiring themselves & seemed to call in all the male turkeys from all around. The sound of turkey gobbles carries for a mile. I got a couple pictures of some of them which are below.
We have never seen so many males in one group nor heard such noise. Only males gobble & parade around, which is done to attract females. Females only cluck. It was hard to concentrate on anything with all their noise. They finally wandered on down the hill late in the PM. Maybe the light changed so they could no longer see their reflections in the windows. It was really quite funny but I wouldn't think so if that goes on every day. They have not been back since Wed. Love from the turkey territory...Ramona
