Tag Archive for ‘Merriam’s wild turkeys’ at Beside the Stream

Tag Archive for 'Merriam’s wild turkeys'

Turkeys in a tree, three one and two

Published on February 2, 2008 in Merriam's wild turkey. 2 Comments

In the deep snow, turkeys have been roosting in the tree directly by the barn. There were six big turkeys perched in it yesterday morning (and I learned how to Photoshop a spotlight and lens flare). There were three turkeys on the right

one on the left

and two in the middle

Isn’t he the handsomest? See his beard swinging forward to brush his toes? These wild turkeys are supposed to be smart, and they’ve been quick to understand the rules here: they know that the dog won’t bother them and that I’ll scatter four cups of corn under the pines in the morning. I’m betting they stay smart in the summer, when the rules include keeping out of the gardens. Bob’s not so sure.

Snow Day!

Published on January 28, 2008 in Merriam's wild turkey and Snow storm. 2 Comments

For the first time since 1997, school is out for a snow day. In some parts of the US, four or five inches of snow is enough to cancel school; here it takes feet. This storm rolled in two days ago, when I was hiking high above the valley. The snow swept down from the north

and from the west

Two days later, school was called off and the turkeys are hiding out in the well of the neighbor’s pine tree.

Here is Bob clearing the driveway. I surely do love to see a man on a tractor doing some giant task, but I bet the first hour is more fun than the second or third.

He cleared snow for three hours.

Feeding Ancestral Puebloan Turkeys

Published on January 19, 2008 in Merriam's wild turkey. 0 Comments

It is embarrassingly easy to make friends with turkeys in the winter. I put out about 4 cups of cracked corn from Towaoc every day, and often a dozen or thirteen turkeys come by to eat it. I think there are eight females that all flock together, and a separate gang of four or five males who started visiting when I started putting out corn.

Today about fifteen minutes after I tossed the cracked corn into the pine needles, a male comes by with a silly looking beard. He starts eating and I lay down in the snow about eight feet away to take some pictures.

I’m thinking “what a handsome turkey you are (wish I had on ski pants)”

as the snow melts through my jeans, and suddenly there are two turkeys in my viewfinder

three

and by the time I sit up it’s a turkey convention.

These turkeys know that I put out the corn–they’ve watch me do it. And they fell for it just like a five-year-old falls for hot chocolate spiked with cream.

A Fowl Dilemma

Published on January 11, 2008 in Merriam's wild turkey. 3 Comments

Turkeys are such big birds that many men think they look like dinner.

I know it’s more trouble than dinner is worth because fifteen years ago an old bachelor farmer gave me a tom of his that had been hit by a car. It took an unreasonable number of repulsive steps to get that turkey into a pan for seasoning, and then you’re left with a big pair of feet that you’re supposed to boil up for soup and just can’t. It’s horrible, and the local slaughterhouse doesn’t take poultry. That’s one problem. The other problem is that these turkeys have been running around scavenging since the day they hatched. No doubt they’d make a tasty stew boiled down for 48 hours, but they really aren’t a roast meat you’d want to face without special knives. They’d be tough as boots, but even so people often talk about killing them.

The real problem, though, is that turkeys are a new addition to the neighborhood. Miss Roberta says they’re the first local flock since she moved here in the 1940s. And they’re bold, with regular rounds that include gardens up and down the road. This fall, four of them began roosting in the trees by our upper irrigation ditch. And then on Christmas Day there were eight turkeys marching around, and there has been a flock of six or eight ever since.

With such deep snow, the turkeys are looking thin. So I just happened to stop by the Feed Coop, kind of pretending I wasn’t,

and I just happened to get 100 lbs of cracked corn. It just happened. Let’s just say that it happened because every woman loves to see a man in Carhartt’s canvas workclothes moving heavy sacks.

And I put a few cups of cracked corn out for the turkeys (who really did look thin, and who people keep mentioning in the same sentence as dinner).

After the deed was done, I looked up the Department of Wildlife’s opinion on feeding turkeys. I learned that these Merriam’s wild turkeys live in the high Ponderosa forests of the Southwest, total population 334,460 to 344,460. And here’s the twist–Merriam’s wild turkey is the exact same turkey as the domesticated turkeys that lived with the Pueblo Indians. It is believed the ancestral Puebloans brought these turkeys from Mexico, and when the ancestral Pueblo culture died out around 1400 AD their turkeys ran off to the forests and are still there today as Merriam’s wild turkey.

So this is my story and I’m sticking to it: I’m not feeding wild turkeys at all; I’m raising a flock of ancestral Puebloan turkeys. These gals lay 10 to 12 eggs in a clutch, so a sidebar of corn through a tough winter might make all the difference. The turkeys live here year-round, so everyone knows where to find them. It’s so easy to see a turkey, and there are so many hunters. Dilemma.

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