Turkeys and Red-Tails

Yesterday the temperature here on the mountain was in the mid-seventies the sky was clear if a bit hazy, and there was a good breeze -- ideal walking weather -- and what a walk it was. I headed west along the ridge, eventually coming out onto cleared fields. There I met the turkey troop. There are about two dozen wild turkeys living up behind our place. They're very shy and hard to see, but every once in a long while they'll come out into the open for a brief viewing. My best encounter was about four years ago when I was walking down a forest path and heard something behind me. I turned and saw a bunch of turkeys lined up along the path following me. As soon as I turned, the lead turkey headed off into the bushes and the rest followed in a matter of seconds. I counted eighteen of them. What a picture it would have made! But I didn't have a camera with me.

This time I had a camera in my hand as I emerged from the woods and startled the troop. But they are damn quick. By the time I turned the camera on and snapped a pic only one lone straggler was still in view. You can barely see him in the pic above; the rest are well hidden in the woods. A couple of years ago, walking the same path with a friend of mine from Malaysia, we startled a white tailed deer as we emerged from the woods. Maybe I should take something to sit on and stake out the place. Who knows what I'll see next.

A bit further on I saw my first red-tail of the season; and he was flying low and slow enough for me to take pictures. He was also low enough to cause the resident murder of crows a lot of consternation. Their warning calls were what alerted me to the fact that a predator was on the wing. The pics aren't very clear -- but that's because I refuse to spend thousands of dollars on top-end equipment. It's enough for me that I could see it clearly through my binoculars.

Some people look for the first robin of Spring; I look for the first hawk. Spring, for me, has finally arrived.