Ready For Love
It’s spring, the time of year when love is in the air, or, as Walt Disney put it, when all the animals are twitterpated. Insofar as The Quarry Farm is concerned, noboby shows their love quite so dramatically as the two bronze turkeys we recently took in. The fact that both birds are male hasn’t dampened their ardor. Not one bit. They strut about the property, feathers fluffed and tails fanned, gobbling for all they’re worth. But it’s their heads that provide the real entertainment.
Not in the mood
Turkeys, both wild and domestic, have two prominent features on and about their heads: wattles and snoods. The wattle hangs below the beak while the snood sprouts from the cere just above the bony part of the beak. During peak periods of romantic interest, both the snood and the wattle fill up with blood and turn bright red. Contrarily, when they’re scared, tired or simply don’t find you attractive, both features turn a grayish blue.
The wild turkeys are coming out down here in Southern Indiana for mating season. We see them more often and hear their calls in the distance. It won’t be long before we start to see gaggles of young birds running about that look a bit like feathered dinosuars.
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While about chickens, this seems appropriate:
what is now a hen
was, times past, a dinosaur
respect your breakfast
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How literary Steve! I am writing it down as we speak. Love it!
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We had 10 free to roam heritage turkeys, dark and white mix, up until last weekend when something had chased them and killed all but one. The main pair, we had from when they were chicks. Kee Kee, female and Turk, male. I call her Tabitha. she is very lonely and she has only laid 5 or 6 eggs. Our turkey days may be done. They were the neatest turkeys and I miss the two mating ones, Turk and Kee Kee. Hope you have better luck than us.
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What a sadness for you. We have lost some of our hens, but it’s worth the risk to see how happy our girls, and boys, are ranging free. We are just beginning to see what personalities the turkeys have. Thank you for sharing your experience, the good and the bad. Hope you will continue to do so.
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Beautiful birds. It’s such a shame that the Division of wildlife shot the remaining two that were by Diller Rd. You’d have thought they could have been relocated to a more rural area.
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They did what? Why?
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