Favorite Wild Turkey Tuesday Palooza 22 photos

in Feathered Friends2 years ago

This is my post for Favorite Bird SMAP contest round 80. Wild Turkey Tuesday. Well ok, maybe Owls are my very favorite, but I don't have any new pics of them and really only one set of good Owl pics I took myself.

So my second favorite bird is the Wild Turkey. I just love these birds. Hearing these gobble from deep in the wild woods is a tremendous sound you won't soon forget. I know many spread their pics out across multiple posts, but I took these all at one session in just a few minutes and couldn't wait to share

Here is my entry for the smap contest round 80 in the FeatheredFriends community.

This was my favorite shot of the session. I couldn't resist sharing a bunch of the others as well.

Of course, I was lucky to have an extended shooting session with them in the backyard last weekend and as luck would have it, also had the large zoom lens handy to make it even better. I shot all these from the back door on the second floor deck. They still spotted me, and I had to be careful not to spook them too bad.

There are 5 major Turkey subspecies. Here in Vermont, we have the Eastern Turkey. Other subspecies are the Rio Grande, the Osceola, Merriams, and Gould's turkeys.


This nice hen tried to sneak off into the woods. I actually think they've got a nest or two just up the hill.


I had to do a little crop of the previous pic. I just love the high res capability of this Sony A7RIV to allow for this while still having a decent quality pic.

Now for the next three, I did 3 levels. The first is original with the quality reduced for upload size. This shot was taken with the 200-600 zoom lens at about 75 yards away.

Then the first crop, which actually makes the bird look huge imho. In reality, it was a very large turkey, I'm guessing at least 28-30 lbs or more.

Then we have the "super crop" image below, not bad for 75 yards away!

This one, living dangerously just in front of my 100 yard practice target. (No turkeys injured in the taking of these photos!)


Interesting gobbler here with mostly white head instead of red. He doesn't look that old from the beard length.

And then the boys were nice enough to pose for a couple group photos... I actually cheated and made my own loud gobbling sound to get them all up and looking at the same time. Can you train wild turkeys?

Have a great week!

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Those are some great shots! It always amazes me how large turkeys are, when you get up close to them.

One of the strangest experiences I've had was back when I lived in Texas and several of them suddenly FLEW across the road in front of me, maybe 15-20 feet up. I'd only ever seen them fly to get up into the cottonwoods to roost, before that.

=^..^=

Yes, it just doesn't seem right to see them be able to fly. I had a similar experience last month in the front yard. I went out the front door, took two steps and surprised two of them in-flight that were just planning to land not 10 feet away from me in the yard, they were already below the roof of the house, and startled me, the dog, and the turkeys so much we all jumped, the turkeys couldn't pull up at that point, but hit the ground running. The dog jumped back like WTF was that? and we watched them run off into the woods. Definitely got my heart pumping!

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Bang, I did it again... I just rehived your post!
Week 118 of my contest just started...you can now check the winners of the previous week!
!PIZZA
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No turkeys injured in the taking of these photos!

ha, I could bet!

Very weird and spooky creatures.
(And I dare to whine that some birdies dont let me come closer that 2 metres, haha!!)

Thanks, and yes these are truly Wild and very skittish. Even at that distance, I had to very carefully and slowly open the sliding glass door and just peek a bit out the side.. they were keen to even a little movement!

These birds are so massive. And their heads scare me since childhood😄

It's really something to hear them take off and fly near you. The large wings make quite a noise!

Well, they are not winning beauty contests, but they have other qualities... :)
I always wondered why there are no wild turkeys here in Europe. I'm sure they could survive, regarding climate and food and so on.

Sounds like maybe a good import opportunity. I've wondered that myself.

There are turkeys in farms of course, we like a nice turkey dinner, too. :)
Its just surprising that they never managed to escape and found a wild turkey population. Like it happened with racoons and mink for example.

Ok, all you vegetarian bird lovers close your ears. I haven't hunted them in at least a decade or two, but they do taste very different than captive (better). Nearly all the meat is darker and more firm. Even the "white" meat looks is as dark or darker than the leg meat from captive. Very often captive are also mostly white, as they are kept packed together in tight barns (horrible if you've ever been to one). My cousin used to work at one, I visited and was horrified at the environment.

Yes, I know, its sad. But people always go for the lowest prices, and thats how it is achieved. How else can hundreds of millions of turkeys be sold for a few dollars?
But hunting is not a solution either. If everybody would do that, you would soon have as many wild turkeys as we do here - none.

Brilliant shots!
I must say I have no clue about the subspecies and to be honest I only have seen domesticated turkey. Wild turkeys are very impressive. I would say you did manage training them with the last photos. 🙂

Yay! 🤗
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Interesting birds! It's the first time I've seen them. I think we don't have wild turkeys here.

Thanks, they are quite impressive. Even more so in the early spring when they are mating and the males are fanning their tails out and strutting about.

I had to go and google the tails and they are impressive indeed :)

They are really something to watch in person. I had the great luck to see a pair of Jake's fighting for the females several years ago. Strutting and fighting, made quite a noise and was thrilling to watch.

I freaking !LUV the turkey's gooble (:

Grab a !PIZZA on me.

- EvM

And here I was thinking turkeys only come out for thanks given.

I also did not know that owls are wild turkeys.

Is there any particular difference from their domesticated cousins?

Well owls are not wild turkeys, but both are my top favorites. The primary differences are health of course, and most domesticated (at least commercially raised) don't get proper coloring because kept in barns/cages. Some people keep them as pets, if raised from young like a chicken, they'll just kinda hang out.

Interesting. Do you think a female wild turkey would mate with a super domesticated turkey?

Hmm google says similar DNA, but would be rare to happen. Domesticated have been bred to be fat, slow, and stupid. Wild are still survival of the fittest, can run 25 mph and fly 55 mph. Domestic don't live long in the wild and are usually found and eaten by predators (Coyotes, Bobcats, Fox, etc.) rather quickly.

Oh wow. Lol...they are bred to be stupid. Very interesting.

I read somewhere that chickens can count to 10.

here is a video too.

I think domestication can have that effect especially if they are bred for food.

I eat meat though, I feel hypocritical admitting that we do that to turkeys