First of all, I want to thank Richard and Mike (richardphotos and mapps) for their wonderful Natures' Mix background pack photos (soon to be released at RMP). About this image: I selected this particular image from the background pack since it reminds me so much of the wooded property I grew up on in upstate New York, and also thought that it would be a perfect setting for Ken's turkeys. About turkeys: I don't know exactly how many, but one thing is for sure, we had a lot of these guys running around our land. My mother liked to feed the wildlife (much to my father's chagrin), and those turkeys did very well indeed. Cracked corn was their fare. I don't know if it was the food or something genetic about our turkeys, but the males were enormous. The leader of the toms could look me straight in the eye, and I am 5'6"--felt like I was looking at an emu. The toms also have really large feet and you could hear them stomping around in the woods. You don't want to know what they did to our landscaping...On average, our toms were a good two times the size of the hens...you didn't see the hens too often--they were really skittish, and I never saw them come up for the cracked corn. Their feathera might look ordinary to most folks, but if the sun light hits them just right, there is a nice greenish-reddish irridence to the chest feathers (somewhere in my apartment, I have a whole bag of their feathers--don't ask why). Now you might not wonder too much about where turkeys sleep, but if you do think about it, given their size, you probably think they sleep on the ground. Nope, these big birds sleep high up in the trees at night. In the winter when the trees are bare and, if there is a full moon out, you can see these large dark shapes hunkered down on the branches. A very strange sight indeed. Most folks think turkeys are dumb...well this is just not true--at least not for the wild ones. They could recognize different people and wouldn't come in view if there was a stranger around. They would come to my mother and to me when called, of course looking for that handout ;) Don't forget that Ben Franklin wanted to make the wiley wild turkey the US national bird...and Franklin was no dummy :D Well, that's about it for some facts about turkeys you won't find in Wikopedia, LOL...
TFL and many thanks for your kind comments on my previous image...they are always welcome and appreciated
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