Big Bird comes to Call

Napster enjoys sitting on his armchair, watching the birds at the feeders outside the window.

Recently, his attention was rivetted not on the feeders, but on the tree to the right.  Watching what I at first took to be a large black squirrel... but which gradually unfolded itself into a wild turkey.  These are truly big birds, and it is a little astonishing at how well they can fly!   They roost in trees at night, so no surprise that they can get up in the trees.



They have been coming in to clean up the wild plums still on the tree just outside my door.   Taffy is pretty determined that her job is to keep them off the lawns, much like the Canada geese...

Napster, for his part, was boldly stalking this one, which had come right onto the deck to feast at the bird feeder.  No, the blue jay did NOT defend the right to the feeder... When these characters arrive, everybody else backs off!












Cat and dog not withstanding, the turkeys return very swiftly to the food they have found.   They visit the stable as well, where there is often some chicken-feed outside the door to be scooped up if their timing is good and the chickens have been slow on the up-take.









Having them in the plum tree scared the dickens out of me though, the first morning they appeared. There were about ten of them up in the tree. As I stepped out of the door, they all exploded out of their and flew in different directions.  All I saw was this sudden cloud of black wings in the air -- and I can tell you I hopped right back into the porch until I realized it was just the turkeys.   They are not always easy to spot up in the branches.

Brian says that the 'turkeyfication' of the tree is almost complete...   They will all vanish soon enough, moving along through the woods to locate their next food source.  In the meantime, we're rather enjoying the close up look at the creatures.  And tracking them through the fresh snow.  I've got fingers crossed that we may find their roost tree...