April 29: Roadside wonders

In the field

where we always look for turkeys--

flock of turkeys.

 

Posted with Blogsy

November 19: As I drive to Vermont

Flock of turkeys

gleaning in the cornfield

a week before Thanksgiving.

Posted with Blogsy

October 26: Walk at Merryspring

three turkey feathers

flagging the path through the field

where I'm meant to go

Posted with Blogsy

October 24: Closer

Venus, Jupiter, and Mars move ever closer together in the pre-dawn hours. This morning, right out my front door, so bright, I wanted to keep staring and staring until they dimmed with the sunrise.

 

Above: three planets.

Below: wild turkeys feeding

in a misty field.

Posted with Blogsy

December 13: Hazy shade of winter

Snowing in the pass--
in the old horse pasture
turkeys forage, unfazed.

November 27: Thanksgiving turkeys

On Facebook we share
photos of wild turkeys
wading through fresh snow.

April 20: Waiting for woodcocks at Lily Pond

At dusk, hoping to catch the woodcock aerial mating display. We hear turkeys gobbling, geese and ducks, peepers, robins, blackbirds, and cardinals, and catch a glimpse of an eagle chasing an osprey, but no woodcocks on this chilly night.

 

All at once, frogs switch on,

and one by one

Mars, Jupiter, stars appear.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

February 17: Tracks in the snow

Snowshoed up Beech Hill in Rockport this afternoon with my friend Brian and his dog Jack. The trail up hadn't seen human traffic since this most recent storm. But we observed tracks of many other creatures that had left their mark on the fresh snow: coyote, snowshoe hare, squirrel, mouse, the interweaving paths of a flock of turkeys.

I step over tracks
of many turkeys, each bird
leaving its own trail.

October 19: Sumac

Scarlet sumac leaves,
scarlet sumac berries.
A turkey scuttles past.

April 11: Wildlife at the dump

The fitness center at our local YMCA has big windows that look out onto interesting views of the local dump. Stay with me, here. I'm not entirely joking. One window faces a big ugly metal building, but in the background, craggy Mount Battie rises dramatically amid the Camden Hills. The sky is often an important presence in this scene, as well. Some evenings the window frames a spectacular moonrise. This afternoon a bank of shining white-topped cumulus clouds lurked on the horizon. This particular window is along the track, in an otherwise inaccessible corner of the gym; the prospect of another glimpse of a cool-looking sky is sometimes the main incentive for me to run one more lap.

Other windows, placed so gym-goers can enjoy a view from the weight machines, face the back of the building. There's a patch of woods through which deer sometimes pass. And there's more of the dump, a section that includes an area of grassed-over land fill marred by piles of demolition debris. A couple of nights ago, as my husband and I were walking together on the track, we noticed a crow dive-bombing a hawk in a tree at the dump's fringe. This evening, on yet another round of the track, we noticed a flock of turkeys out there. On each circuit, we tried to pay attention to them. At one point, a big tom was fanning his tail and strutting through a group of apparently unimpressed hens. Another couple using the weight machines had also noticed them, with seeming delight.

Beauty's not the thing--
habitat is habitat.
The turkeys don't care.

March 14: Watch the road

Doesn't it always happen that when you're in a hurry, the guy driving in front of you is going 20 MPH under the speed limit? And when you finally get past him, that sense of impatience lingers. Fortunately, I took some deep breaths, slowed back down, and relaxed a bit, because just a few minutes later I came to an intersection at which a car was stopped halfway through at an odd angle. No accident. I think the car just died and rolled there. The poor driver was standing there on her cell phone obviously calling for help. Several minutes after that, if I hadn't regained my calm, I might have clipped a turkey. Instead, I was able to watch with a smile as a small flock safely disappeared into the roadside shrubbery. When I finally got to my destination, I felt like I'd successfully run a gauntlet of sorts.

Slowed, I didn't kill
that woodchuck or those turkeys.
A good day to drive.

January 25: Turkeys in the woods

Hiking on Ragged Mountain this morning, we followed several lines of turkey tracks up a dirt road. Judging from the tracks, which proceeded straight up the road, these were determined turkeys who knew where they were going, no wandering out of line or straying into the woods. We saw no actual turkeys (though we did flush a grouse), just their tracks and scat--what they left behind.

Later, tromping around on the snowy crust in the woods, we came upon a fungus known as turkey tail looking particularly colorful against the snow, much as actual turkey feathers would have. This clump is barely larger than the size of one turkey track:

These colorful, layered fans are only a small part of the entire fungus, with most of the organism hidden within the bark of the tree on which it's living. Also, I think it's a little unusual to see a turkey tail in "full bloom" surrounded by snow, just as it would be to see a tom turkey fanning his tail this time of year. As with the birds and the simple etchings of their tracks, what we're seeing is not the whole story. 

Written on the snow:

beginnings of wild stories

about wild turkeys.

July 14: Why did the turkeys cross the road?

A friend and I enjoyed a lovely lunch today at Cellardoor Winery. We ate our sandwiches out on the sunny deck overlooking the young vineyards and distant farm fields, sipped our complimentary glass of wine with  pleasure (we passed up doing the full wine tasting in the middle of a work day). It felt so decadent, wine with lunch! We talked and laughed for a couple of hours, savoring the break, imagining we were in Tuscany. I think for a little while we felt like the other patrons there, all clearly visitors on summer holiday.

As I was speeding along Youngtown Road on my way back to the office, trying to get my head back into work mode, I was forced to brake quickly as I crested a hill. Crossing the road in front of me were a mother turkey and one, small poult. In no hurry, they dawdled their way into the underbrush on the other side. Slow down, they were telling me. You move too fast. Got to make the moment last...

Turkeys in the road
force me to slow down, regain
my prandial calm.

April 4: Surprises

This rather dreary afternoon the precipitation has shifted from rain to snow to rain to snow again. As I work at my desk, I periodically check to see what it's doing now. In the time it took me to type those two sentences, what were distinct snowflakes have dissolved into a near-invisible drizzle. I never know what I'm going to see each time I look up.

Earlier, a small bit of motion caught my eye--the first phoebe of spring perched on a branch in the back yard, wagging its tail. A few minutes later, more motion. Although I was alone in the house, I exclaimed, "Whoa!" out loud and ran for the camera... as a flock of six or seven turkeys strutted through the yard. A big hen stopped not ten feet from the window, and I swear she looked right at me, unperturbed, brazen.

Later, as I was heading out to my car, I did another double-take. There, in a barely exposed portion of my flower bed, a small cluster of snowdrops blooms, beautiful little white flowers glowing in the mud. Where did they come from? We've lived here six years and I've never seen them before. I never planted them. What a gift!

Stopped me in my tracks:
snowdrops risen from cold mud
as wet snow still falls.

August 18: Turkeys

Early this morning on my way to Beech Hill I had to stop for traffic. Although in a few hours the steady line of cars would once more be streaming along Route One, at 6:30 a.m. on a back road in sleepy Rockport, Maine, it wasn't cars that were holding me up. It was a flock of turkeys. As I stopped the car and watched several hens rush out of the way, a small flock of poults scattering behind them, I was reminded of a childhood visit to Scotland when we frequently had to stop the car for a flock of free-roaming sheep, or--my favorite--Scottish long-haired cows. There's something special about living in a place where one has to stop for animals on a regular basis.

The turkey flock looked healthy and certainly moved off the road with agility for such large birds. They're such odd-looking creatures, especially the young ones with their skinny necks and awkward bodies. But they can run. The acorns and beechnuts are beginning to drop onto the forest floor, and these mast crops make up a big part of a turkey's diet. So I imagine I'll be stopping for more than one flock of foraging turkeys in the weeks ahead.

Morning turkey trot
as my car scatters the flock.
An excuse to pause.

May 26: In the Sky

Driving through Rockport early this evening, I had one of those "wow" moments. As I headed south down Route One toward what appeared to be dense clouds, at one point I turned my head to see the leading edge of the fog mass. I almost went off the road as I took in what I was seeing and actually did exclaim aloud. I know fog is nothing unusual around here, but this particular formation was like nothing I'd seen before--a tangible, sharp thing cutting through the air like the smooth silvery wing of an airplane, or perhaps something softer but still solid and forceful, like a shark's fin. Carefully feeling its way, this curved rim of fog sent out wispy tendrils ahead of it as it progressed visibly northward. Strange and beautiful, mist made animate, the movements of this cloud beast seeming purposeful--a strange-looking UFO slowly invading the sunny blue skies before it (like those space ships on "Battlestar Galactica" that are actually living beings). (The mind makes some strange connections in the presence of such atmospheric funkiness).

Farther down the road, a broad-winged hawk flapped low over my car to land in a nearby tree. Even farther along, as I was stopped at a light, a turkey took off from the side of the road, barely clearing my windshield. With all this going on overhead, it's amazing I made it intact to my destination.

Sky released its hawks,
its cold, creeping edge of fog;
for fun, a turkey.