Towheeblog

I was enjoying the cool morning overcast, working to protect our baby blueberry plants from well-rooted, encroaching aggressors. Then, a neigbbor lady came by with her four gangly kids and interrupted. Soon I was a cameraman and birder.

Theses birds were certainly urbna, urbane, ur-poultry. They stayed off the street, ignored humans passing by on foot. When they walked down our drive were those wing flaps a turkish gesture of shrugging off the vision of a large, slow-witted mammal? Was it aeration of the under-wing? Limbering exercise?

The Wild Turkey was first successfully introduced into Oregon in the 1960s, there have been waves of introductions from the eastern U.S. and Mexico since then. The turkey is native to North America and the only species from here to become wudeky domesticated. Mom and her five young turks walked away with nary a gobble or a head shake in my direction.