Wild Turkey

We have a little family of wild turkeys. Mind you, these are not 'ours', but true WILD birds that hang around our farm.

At first, there were just three or four, but after hatching babies, there are now 16.

They 'help me weed' the field.

And work under the oak tree. You can see our fenced orchard in the background. They even find their way in there. I am sure they do some cleaning up.

We have a bush in the backyard. We were going to take it out; it has thorns on the branches and is not a very pleasant site. And then we saw this:

These turkeys jump into the bush and eat the berries. Pretty funny. The younger ones can balance on the small branches. The older ones wait on the ground for berries to drop. Yes, we will be keeping the 'turkey bush'.

These turkeys have a routine they follow. You can count on them to be in the field at least once a day, under the oak tree and turkey bush twice a day... and in the tree in the morning.

Tree? What tree? We were feeding the chickens early one morning and saw this! It's like we were living in a Dr. Seuss book.

Sixteen turkeys fly up into a HUGE cypress tree. They just hang out, hopping from one limb to another. They aren't looking for food. Not hiding from predators. We have now seen them do this every morning, so it's part of their routine. Why a tree? Are they playing? Who knows what goes on in the mind of a turkey!

And then, they fly down, just like it was nothing... and are on their way again.