boids

[kip_w]

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I was going to pick up Sarah today. I turned onto East Mountain Road, as I generally do, and looked to see if Flocky was there. No luck. But a bit further down the road I looked over and saw a different flock -- wild turkeys!

The last time I saw a wild turkey in the wild was about five years ago in Virginia, by I-64 (and then I wasn't entirely sure). Before that, it was about 30 years ago at Grand-dad's ranch in Texas. I turned back and pulled over and got my camera out. As I stepped out of the car, the outlying turkey nearest to me headed back to the group. Great, I thought, alpha turkey is warning the flock. I don't know if that's what happened or not -- it seemed to be chasing one other turkey around instead. I put the camera on maximum zoom and snapped away. Then I hurried back to the car (which had, as always, locked itself on the hope I wasn't clutching my keys) and went to get Sarah, grabbing a couple more shots out the window. On the way back, they had already departed.





On full optical zoom, you can make out turkey-shaped silhouettes. It's something. (I cropped this so the turkeys would take up more of the space. An uncropped shot is at my flickr page, if that's -- you know, interesting.)
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Comments

[davesslave.livejournal.com]

How wonderful! I have never seen turkeys in the wild.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

Obviously you've never been to a Neo Con picnic.

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

Boids is absoids.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

The only time I saw them was when I was on the Blue Ridge Parkway a few years back, on my way to Asheville. It's a good thing you can't go very fast on that, because I came around the corner and they were in the road. I stopped and waited for them to head to the other side.

[meggins.livejournal.com]

I think the only time I've seen wild turkeys was in Iowa.

This is neat.