Wild turkeys

[chochiyo_sama]

Wild turkeys 4, a photo by Pirate Queen ChoChiyo on Flickr.

Moments before I took this picture, they were all on the side of the road by that white line. The mommas hopped into the ditch when I pulled over to take their pictures, and the babies hopped in before I could get my camera out of my bag. The babies are so short that the tall grass swallows them up--you can see their heads poking out--but it looks like dried dead leaves instead of baby turkeys in this picure.

Comments

[the_godiva]

Oh, no. It looks like baby turkeys and their Momma. Well, it looks like some kind of bird until you identified them as turkeys for me. I'm not that familiar with what a wild turkey looks like.

It is so wonderful you can see things like this.

We used to have California quail come in the yard and perch on the chain link fence at dusk. Often a whole family, Dad, Mom and the babies. That was decades ago. The canyon is protected but with all the coyotes, I'm sure there's not one quail left.

I'll occasionally see a red tail hawk circling above, but the only thing you'll see on the ground if you're lucky is a lizard.

I remember drives across the desert and you'd see a roadrunner. Not any more. First, most of the freeways don't have those long open stretches anymore. All built up now. Used to be the drive to Las Vegas had long stretches of nothing. Now there are housing developments and shopping malls all along the way. I haven't driven to Arizona in 30 years but I'm sure it's the same along the freeway that way too.

[chochiyo-sama.livejournal.com]

Didn't have my camera with me today, but I went down that same road and saw a turkey buzzard fly out of the woods and into the cornfield! Those things are butt ugly. But its always cool to see one.

I also saw an enormous hawk sitting on a half rotted fence post and a bunch of little yellow finches flitting about.