You wouldn't have made it out beyond the Appalaichians (sp?) 250 years ago, stalking the fowl with your Pennsylvania Long Rifle.
I see you more in Dover - or Philadelphia, chatting up Peggy Arnold, wondering if she still has the hots for that young British major she dated before she married Ben.
This may be a PETA violation. The turkeys here are minding their own turkey business and they are suddenly and wantonly stressed out by a Law Professor doing a pretended Turkey Walk. (I always wanted to write "wantonly" like the DAs do in indictments).
Those are not the turkeys I grew up with in South Carolina. They were way more cagey and paranoid than these turkeys. Of course, we were also always trying to fake them out with bogus turkey-calls and then shoot them.
We were charmed when a flock of two hens and eleven chicks (there are now nine) began to visit our meadow to dust and rest in the shade in the late afternoons when the heat is at its worst. They'd pick through the oak leaf litter outside our dining room windows before moving on.
Now the chicks are 3/4 grown/humongous and it's not quite so charming as they uproot everything in sight. So I'm moving them along. Yesterday one of the hens stopped to eyeball me as if she was deciding to take me on or not.
Since we have rattlers too I never go into the meadow without a 12 gauge, but being sized up by that cold reptilian eye totally creeped me out.
That is most un-turkey-like behavior. I have been a turkey hunter for 40 years, and I have never seen wild turkeys just freeze and try to wait out danger, as their painfully stupid domesticated cousins do.
Wild turkeys have excellent eyesight, are highly intelligent, very wary and startle exceptionally easily. It's very difficult to walk to within 200 yards of them as the slightest movement or sound within that distance usually sends them exploding into low flight or scampering into thick brush. (They are almost always hunted by calling them in to about 50 yards from a well-hidden spot where a hunter in painstakingly thorough camouflage waits in absolute stillness.)
I really don't understand those turkeys. Could they have been de-sensitized to danger by humans having fed them for a period of time?
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21 comments:
RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!
I've mentioned this before, but a couple of joggers here were attacked by a wild Tom Turkey. He cut the shit out of one of him with his
large talons.
We have a momma and 2 babies (we think something must have eaten the third) which hang out in our field. There's another grown one who comes and goes.
My mom does turkey watch from her spot at the table in the kitchen. Makes life a little more interesting.
1st: Nice wattles!
2nd: Be much more interesting to slowly walk up on pheasants!
Cheers.
Ha, Althouse's voice indicates a fear of Turkeys. You blew it Turkeys. Had you sensed the fear, and counter-attacked, Althouse would have run away.
Always remember Frederic the Great: "Il nous faut de l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace!"
Do Turkey's have tits?
I like nice hard milky tits.
Tits.
What were you drinking?
Those are tea party turkeys.. they are fearful, angry, and full of hate..
I read it in the NYT ;)
No turkey unless it's a club sandwich.
Drive your ostrich to the café.
I thought a whole package of mint would make a quart of ice cream really minty but two packages would be better.
Lovely post and video.
They can and will attack.
I made a bit of a joke of it a while back, and I thought it was funny. I have since been told that it was less funny than I (still) thought it was...
http://mattio829.blogspot.com/2008/03/wild-turkeys.html
Such a fantastic reintroduction success though!
They should stick a mountain lion in every mailbox!
**sarcasm alert**
Are we in bed with China?
I asked...
I hope is not the good China.
**sarcasm alert**
You wouldn't have made it out beyond the Appalaichians (sp?) 250 years ago, stalking the fowl with your Pennsylvania Long Rifle.
I see you more in Dover - or Philadelphia, chatting up Peggy Arnold, wondering if she still has the hots for that young British major she dated before she married Ben.
Wild turkeys aren't stupid and helpless like their domesticated brethren.
Must. Avoid. Making. Metaphor.
Alt to turkeys:
Hey turkeys.
Turkeys to Alt:
Hey yourself you turkey.
re: mint ice cream. yum!
re: turkeys, so, how many years did it take those geniuses to figure it out.
This may be a PETA violation. The turkeys here are minding their own turkey business and they are suddenly and wantonly stressed out by a Law Professor doing a pretended Turkey Walk. (I always wanted to write "wantonly" like the DAs do in indictments).
Smart to leave them an open escape route as you approached, although not doing so might have produced a more interesting "attack" video.
Those are not the turkeys I grew up with in South Carolina. They were way more cagey and paranoid than these turkeys. Of course, we were also always trying to fake them out with bogus turkey-calls and then shoot them.
We were charmed when a flock of two hens and eleven chicks (there are now nine) began to visit our meadow to dust and rest in the shade in the late afternoons when the heat is at its worst. They'd pick through the oak leaf litter outside our dining room windows before moving on.
Now the chicks are 3/4 grown/humongous and it's not quite so charming as they uproot everything in sight. So I'm moving them along. Yesterday one of the hens stopped to eyeball me as if she was deciding to take me on or not.
Since we have rattlers too I never go into the meadow without a 12 gauge, but being sized up by that cold reptilian eye totally creeped me out.
That is most un-turkey-like behavior. I have been a turkey hunter for 40 years, and I have never seen wild turkeys just freeze and try to wait out danger, as their painfully stupid domesticated cousins do.
Wild turkeys have excellent eyesight, are highly intelligent, very wary and startle exceptionally easily. It's very difficult to walk to within 200 yards of them as the slightest movement or sound within that distance usually sends them exploding into low flight or scampering into thick brush. (They are almost always hunted by calling them in to about 50 yards from a well-hidden spot where a hunter in painstakingly thorough camouflage waits in absolute stillness.)
I really don't understand those turkeys. Could they have been de-sensitized to danger by humans having fed them for a period of time?
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