Turkey Whisperer

This morning as EJ was driving off to work, he saw a large flock of turkeys, which he guessed might be headed to our place. He was right. Ever since the first turkey found our bird feeders, the turkeys have been appearing every two or three days.

I love them.

Today they stayed most of the day–about 5 or 6 hours. They had been at our property for an hour or two, eating the seeds that had fallen from the bird feeders when I thought about them not moving very far away when JJ got into the Buggy and drove off to work the other day. I decided to see how they would react if I took a scoop of bird seed outside and scattered it around so they could eat some more. When I went outside, they didn’t run into the forest. Instead, they all gathered near the far feeders. I scattered the seed and went back inside and they went back to eating. A couple of hours later, I scattered another scoop of seeds and, again, they didn’t move very far away. As soon as I turned to go back into the house, they began to move toward the seeds.

Maybe they will get used to me coming out with seeds for them.

I feel like the Turkey Whisperer. Or maybe like Snow White. When I was a child (and even now), I always liked stories about people who could talk to animals. The summer that I was 16 years old, I trained the squirrels in our neighborhood to take peanut butter crackers from my hand. It was cool.

At one point, one of the turkeys sort of flyingly jumped onto the small tray feeder and ate the seed there while another turkey looked up at him. Later, a turkey–maybe the same one?–stood on the large rock and ate the seed from the feeder.

The turkey standing on the small tray feeder

The turkey standing on the rock.

The other birds pretty much stay away from the feeders while the turkeys are there. During the afternoon, I watched the Pileated Woodpecker fly from the trees on one side of our property to the other–and back again–obviously wanting to eat the suet. A couple of times it landed on the suet feeder, but was nervous about the turkeys and didn’t stay long. When the turkeys finally walked single file into the forest and disappeared, the woodpecker immediately flew to the suet and ate undisturbed. The other little birds returned to the feeders as well.

I think the birds–all of them–are very interesting to watch.

Tonight when EJ came home from work, he showed me his bandaged hand. Work has been slow so he has been working in the shipping department building boxes. He accidentally put a nail through his hand with the nail gun. Yuck.

Tomorrow morning he has to have a root canal done. Yuck again.