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Wild turkeys
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Is it just me or are wild turkeys getting way bolder than they used to be. They used to be skittish animals seldom could you get close to them. Yesterday I had to almost come to a stop on the way home because they were occupying the road and taking their sweet old time to move on.

They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

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Re: Wild turkeys [spockwaslen] [ In reply to ]
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It is mostly the young ones. They spend too much time on social media and were either showing off or one another or just oblivious. Jakes, especially, are bad about that.

There is an air force base about 20 miles away. Over the course of a week, I saw a tom turkey three different times as he was walking/feeding in the median of a 4 lane highway. This was right near an entry gate. The speed limit in that area is 45, so he likely got splattered if he continued to do that. What is strange is that there was a lot of wooded area nearby, but he like the median for some reason.
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Re: Wild turkeys [rick_pcfl] [ In reply to ]
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Maybe picking up gravel for his crop?

They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

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Re: Wild turkeys [spockwaslen] [ In reply to ]
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This is an 'only in the Bay Area' type of story. If this was any other place that turkey would be on a dinner plate. With gravy.

https://abc7news.com/...land-attack/7251177/
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Re: Wild turkeys [axlsix3] [ In reply to ]
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There's a This American Life episode called, Murder Most Fowl that's kind of crazy involving mean wild turkeys and the people who love or hate them.

In central MA, either their population is huge, or they really like to hang out by the side of the road because I see flocks on nearly every ride. I was on a ride, downhill, 35 mph, and watch a turkey barely miss the person's head in front of me. It wouldn't have been pretty if they had collided.
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Re: Wild turkeys [spockwaslen] [ In reply to ]
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spockwaslen wrote:
Maybe picking up gravel for his crop?

I didn't even think about that. it was mostly grass, but there would have been plenty of gravel there.
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Re: Wild turkeys [axlsix3] [ In reply to ]
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axlsix3 wrote:
This is an 'only in the Bay Area' type of story. If this was any other place that turkey would be on a dinner plate. With gravy.


https://abc7news.com/...land-attack/7251177/


New Jersey also

https://www.insider.com/...r-new-jersey-2019-11
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Re: Wild turkeys [spockwaslen] [ In reply to ]
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spockwaslen wrote:
Is it just me or are wild turkeys getting way bolder than they used to be. They used to be skittish animals seldom could you get close to them. Yesterday I had to almost come to a stop on the way home because they were occupying the road and taking their sweet old time to move on.


I agree. When I was a kid I would go turkey hunting with my uncle in VA (more like "looking" for Turkeys as we never managed to bag one). They were damn-near ghosts. You'd catch a glimpse of one turning tail and it would be gone. Now they block the road in my community on a regular basis. I literally have to lay on my horn to get them to move and even then they only move begrudgingly, not with any urgency.
Last edited by: GreenPlease: Nov 27, 20 9:22
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Re: Wild turkeys [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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Yes you would have to wear cammo and wrap your gun in cammo and be stock still. I'd be interested to hear if they are smarter when they see a gun.

They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

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Re: Wild turkeys [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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GreenPlease wrote:
spockwaslen wrote:
Is it just me or are wild turkeys getting way bolder than they used to be. They used to be skittish animals seldom could you get close to them. Yesterday I had to almost come to a stop on the way home because they were occupying the road and taking their sweet old time to move on.


I agree. When I was a kid I would go turkey hunting with my uncle in VA (more like "looking" for Turkeys as we never managed to bag one). They were damn-near ghosts. You'd catch a glimpse of one turning tail and it would be gone. Now they block the road in my community on a regular basis. I literally have to lay on my horn to get them to move and even then they only move begrudgingly, not with any urgency.

Even in the 10 years I've lived in Maine they seem to have become way more common.
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Re: Wild turkeys [spockwaslen] [ In reply to ]
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They're all over my suburban neighborhood. I can walk with a foot of them. They're basically giant pigeons.
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Re: Wild turkeys [spockwaslen] [ In reply to ]
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My parents house bordered a large town forest, so they used to have turkeys, deer etc wander through the back yard quite often. The guy who lived next door wasn’t the brightest bulb (even though he taught at MIT) and used to spread cracked corn in his backyard to feed them, since he thought it was fascinating to have all this wildlife so close by. Of course, the turkeys came in droves after that and would get pretty aggressive, once preventing another neighbor from getting out of their car. They used to leave droppings all over my parents yard and driveway, and my dad would constantly tell the guy to stop feeding them but he never did.



"You can never win or lose if you don't run the race." - Richard Butler

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Re: Wild turkeys [Brian in MA] [ In reply to ]
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I think it depends on how wild the turkeys really are. Urban wild turkeys are about as domestic as urban deer. The further from people they grow up the more wild they seem in my personal experience.
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Re: Wild turkeys [spockwaslen] [ In reply to ]
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No turkeys but we do have a few peacocks running around here.

Long Chile was a silly place.
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Re: Wild turkeys [spockwaslen] [ In reply to ]
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This is an interesting thread for me. Wild turkey populations have exploded in areas where they were not indigenous.

They make great chili. Trust me.
Last edited by: zed707: Nov 28, 20 0:16
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Re: Wild turkeys [spockwaslen] [ In reply to ]
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Here's my turkey stories:

15-ish years ago, I gave an escape artist of a cat to my mom. She lived on my mom's 10 forested acres, had some half-bobcat kittens, ate a lot of snakes, etc. One day, she was in the small backyard area my mom kept and she was chased up a tree by a flock of a dozen or so Eastern Turkeys. I had to go out and chase the turkeys away so she would come down.
I had never seen a wild turkey before she moved to central Michigan in 2000. In two decades outside of Ann Arbor, I saw zero. Thousands of Canadian Geese and hundreds of whitetail deer though - there was an open field across the street that migrating geese would spend a couple days in.

In 06 or 07, I moved to metro Sacramento. In Roseville there is a ravine with creek running right through the center of town (Dry Creek, it eventually dumps into the Sacramento River). Lots of non-native Rio Grande wild turkeys lived in that ravine. One weekend morning driving down Douglas Blvd (3 lanes each direction + median + turn lanes) a white-ish turkey ran out in front of the pickup in front of me. The bird exploded, feathers everywhere. Imagine Randy Johnson destroying that seagull, and make it 10x bigger!
My office overlooked the ravine, so every morning when it wasn't 1000 degrees, a few turkeys would wander the parking lot, messing with cars and intimidating people.




I don't have any Mass turkey stories, but I sure see a lot of them.
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Re: Wild turkeys [spockwaslen] [ In reply to ]
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Here in Texas, turkeys are the new deer in suburban neighborhoods.

I have them backyard fence hopping, from house to house foraging.

I love turkeys though and love seeing them around.

Along with deer, they are a major success story in wildlife recovery from the turn of the century in which both were almost wiped out.

You can thank your hunters for funding this recovery over the decades.

My grandmother is 100, about to be 101. She grew up in rural Alabama. She made a comment one time that she had never tasted venison and all her years growing up, living off things people killed, raised, etc.., no one ever brought in a deer. She said you just didn't see them way back in the day. They were all gone.

Deer are pests now to a lot of us and have to keep them out of our gardens.

.
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Re: Wild turkeys [spockwaslen] [ In reply to ]
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I have seen wild turkeys about 50% of my rides over the last 5 years here in N. Alabama, and I have been close enough for on several occasions to feel their feathers when they flew across the road at the last second as I went by. The last one was between my handlebars and face when it passed by.

The place I ride is on a military installation, and they allow some hunting for turkeys in the spring, but that has not reduced the numbers all that much. I have not been knocked of my bike yet, but eventually it may happen if their numbers don't go down.
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Re: Wild turkeys [Erin C.] [ In reply to ]
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Erin C. wrote:
They're all over my suburban neighborhood. I can walk with a foot of them. They're basically giant pigeons.

Be careful with walking up on them. They can have been known to attack humans if they feel threatened and they have some pretty big sharp talons. Like any other wild animal...Give em space. :o)
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Re: Wild turkeys [orphious] [ In reply to ]
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My thoughts on turkeys [and peacocks] have been well-documented here

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ost=7374572#p7374572

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin
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