Tulia Turkey

Okay, this was pretty neat. Yesterday afternoon I looked outside our bedroom window and saw a momma wild turkey ( i think) with 5 or 6 little chicks following her. I wanted to get a picture to send Jon, and I guess we got too close because a few baby turkeys flew to the left into our back yard , and a few to the right across a field into the woods.( i did not know they could fly)

We felt bad for disturbing them, so the boys went in, while Shelby sat on the step to read. I sat at the computer and next thing I knew, I could hear the little birds (wheep, wheep wheep), momma was at the other end of the field and she came running back, as she got closer you could hear her softly chucking for the babies, but the babies would get really quiet, then she would hear the babies in the woods( about 2 acres away), you could tell because her head would swing around and cock to the side, the she would take off running that way as fast as she could. Then these poor little things in our yard would come out and sorta mill around, back and forth, (wheep, wheep wheep) then they would fly a little ways, then get quiet. After about 30 minutes the momma's head peeked up over the hill, she heard them again, and came running . It must have taken her at least an hour and a half to gather the little ones up. She would run back and forth ( WAY back and forth) It was the neatest thing to watch, and now I know exactly what sound baby turkeys make. Another interesting tidbit, she had a few babes following her the last time she came over here to try to find these little ones, and she would cluck differently to the ones following her when they would stray a little than the call to find the ones that were lost.