Turkey

Our neighborhood turkeys are making themselves a bit scarce today. Probably because they know about this:

As you may remember, we have quite a few wild turkeys in our neighborhood. Some years more than others.

People think that Turkeys can’t fly. That’s true of the domestic turkeys. They’ve been bred to have such large breasts that they can no longer fly. But wild turkeys are another bird entirely, and they roost in trees every night which means they have to fly. Have you ever been near one when it takes off? It’s quite a production. They make a lot of noise and go up like a rocket. They don’t go very far though, and their landings tend to be less than graceful. In fact, they usually crash into bushes as they go.

Here’s a pretty good description of how they fly which was in the Washington Post the other day.