Backyard Wildlife: Turkey In The Garden

Neighbor Jane Solomon writes:

I have two backyard wildlife sightings for the Connection. The first was a regular visitor over the winter. This lovely male rufous-sided towhee would pop up from under the azaleas to pick up seed on the wall that had fallen beneath the feeder. He would never stay out in the open very long, often retreating under cover then coming up for more. He’s the first towhee I’ve ever seen in our garden and I would imagine that many of our readers will never have seen one at all.

The second visitor appeared Friday, May 10th at about 5:30 pm. Sammy was sitting at the kitchen table when he shrieked “Mom, there’s a turkey in our garden!” Sure enough, a female wild turkey was on the lawn just outside the kitchen window.

She walked around very close to the house for at least ten minutes. She even faced off at the living room window with our two very excited standard poodles, who had front paws up on the furniture, tails wagging madly, but fortunately not barking. The turkey wasn’t particularly impressed or deterred by them and continued her walk. After turning away for just a moment, we looked back and she was gone. I frankly couldn’t believe she flew off without our seeing her – even out of our peripheral vision – or hearing her wings flap, because she was huge. They must be much more graceful flyers than I imagined.

Got wildlife? Send your photos and a description to [email protected] and we’ll feature them here.