Thursday, April 10, 2014

Why does the turkey cross the road?



...To visit his lady friends, of course.

Two whole days without rain!  I hardly know how to act.  Of course, rain is forecast for Friday but I still get two whole days of sunshine and bright blue sky from horizon to horizon.  It feels as though it’s been months since that’s happened.  Even if it hasn’t been months, I’m pretty sure the other non-rainy days were overcast, so the sunshine seems a novel thing to see.

The sunshine and warmer temperatures are starting to encourage the first signs of spring greenery.  I’m seeing a few patches or shades of green on the yards, amongst the winter brown. The weather has also encouraged flocks of wild turkeys to start roaming around again.  This week I’ve seen them every day.  All sightings have been within a mile of each other, so possibly it’s the same group.  The local wood lots and orchards are their favored haunts, though I’ve also seen them in a cornfield that still boasts the shorn stalks from last fall and a fallow field.  Sometimes I hear them gobbling in the pre-dawn hour from the safety of their forest roost.

Around the cabin, I have discovered where the resident pileated woodpeckers are nesting this year.  I have hopes of getting a few half-decent photos as the nest hole isn’t far from the cabin, and I think I can stand on my raised deck and be nearly eye-level with the site.  I’ve also found where the flickers are going to nest, and that’s not too far from the woodpecker hole.

The forest itself is still as brown as it was in winter. I find no sign of buds on the forest trees or on the smaller underbrush of the forest floor.  The start of that can’t be far off, though—not with 60 degree temperatures and all this lovely sunshine!

5 comments:

Scott said...

Carolyn: A writer/photographer who had heard that our preserve had some of the most approachable turkeys on the East Coast just wrapped-up three days of intense photography here capturing images of our turkeys in full mating mode. This fellow lives north of San Francisco and is writing a book on the gallinaceous game birds of North America, and couldn't find a spot to photograph the Eastern race of Wild Turkeys anywhere. We were happy to have him here. He said he got some really good shots.

Sharkbytes said...

That turkey sure is in a hurry!

biobabbler said...

=) I told my husband, "You want to know how you can tell someone is not from here?" (Calif.) & I read the 1st 2 sentences of your post-turkey-joke paragraph. Two whole days WITH rain would probably disorient, tho' delight, me. Turkeys are pretty stunningly gorgeous, in their own quirky way. =)

Carolyn H said...

Joan: I've seen turkeys every day this week. They are fun to watch. They are such big birds, they somehow look out-sized in this landscape.

Carolyn H said...

biobabbler: I've had so much rain or snow this year that I think I must be in Seattle! It's not usually nearly so wet in this area. i need my sunshine!