One summer day a semi-tame turkey paid a visit. Willie was probably a refugee from a nearby poultry farm that folded. Because of his habit of chest-bumping people, he scared my wife. He absolutely terrorized the cats and attacked his image in hubcaps and reflections from newly-waxed cars. Mom and dad were amazed when he relentlessly attacked their front passenger door until I got the broom after him. He roosted on the roof at night even in thunderstorms. Willie feared nothing, not even lightning. He almost exterminated the cricket population here. He took off in October, perhaps to find a partner or he knew that Thanksgiving was near. In later years, turkeys would cross the property in flocks, but never near a person. Perhaps they were reverting to the wild state as time passed. Haven't seen any since 2015.
I have turkey on my property (in central Virginia), but they seem to cycle through. One year they are thick as thieves, the next year you hardly see any. Through my patio door... Out the front window... They are not real skittish, but they certainly are not tame.
We did not used to have wild turkeys in northern Idaho, abut sometimes in the 80-90’s , the government introduced them to the area, and they seem to have thrived up there. I enjoyed seeing them wandering up and down my driveway and around the yard. Since these were wild turkeys, you could not get close to them at all, unlike your Willie, @Boris Boddenov , who had been raised around people. Are you saying that when the turkey farm folded, they just turned all of the turkeys loose ? Would that have been back when they had such a huge fuss about avaian flu (forgot what they called it), and they were killing all of the chickens and turkeys, and throwing out the eggs ? Instead of killing the poor turkeys, they just turned them loose and at least gave them a chance to survive in the wild.
Yes, Yvonne. They cut them loose in the mid-1980s when the farm folded. I don't know anything about the connection to Avian flu. Some farmers in NC cut pigs loose and they became wild and dangerous. There are clubs here in Md. that sponsor wild boar hunts in the Smokies and the participants are required to use ball-and-cap shootin' irons.
Did you know that turkeys now are so dumb that they will stand with their heads back in the rain until they drown? Not the wild ones, the ones grown for food.
Yes Shirley, I heard that. Well, if any creature is dumb enough to roost on a roof of a house on a hill in a t-storm ....
And to think Ben Franklin wanted to make them our national bird. I can see Thanksgiving now: "Man, we're gonna have eagle leftovers for weeks!!!" I had a rescue dog for a while, and when the turkey would come into my yard, he would be off like a shot. It's amazing to see how fast they can get airborne. The dog was fast, but they were always faster. I've been out fishing and have seen them fly the entire length of a small lake. They are quite a sight when not strutting on the dirt.