/mark
Headline of the Day.
“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly...” - Mr. Carlson.
looks like fingers and drumsticks are pointing both ways as to what brought this on.. some folks may have been feeding these “ wild” turkeys..
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..the behavior is clearly tied to the breeding season, which started recently and runs through about mid-May.
Color plays an important role in turkey breeding, he said, with the color of the male’s head during mating season changes from gaudy blue to white to red. Lobner speculated that perhaps the turkeys are attracted to the red, white and blue postal trucks.
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Part of the problem, Lobner said, is that residents around Owen Conservation Park around the Parkwood Hills neighborhood may be feeding the turkeys, which makes the birds less afraid of humans.
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The eagle on the mail trucks probably needs to be bigger
There are wild turkeys all over here. Last month I saw one running around a parked car about 500 times because it thought it's reflection in the glossy grey paint was a rival bird. I think their brains are about the size of a small raisin.
It never pays to feed wild animals.
The suburban dweller has come to think that all animals are pets they haven’t met yet.
People have become plain stupid about animals.
Animals are not people and they don’t think like people. Wild animals can not be turned in to pets. He who tries risk his health and his life.
Don't laugh....they're good at it, and nobody really knows how to deal with an angry goose.
I came back from an out-of-town trip late one night and was trying to quietly slip past the gate to my back door without waking anyone up.
The fact that I was sneaking seemed to trigger their response and I suddenly have three large adult geese thumping me with their wing 'knuckles' (if you've been around geese, you know that one), biting and hissing at me and making a huge fuss that woke up the whole house. Even after they recognized me, the geese were still suspicious.
This is also what happens when suburbia feeds the animals. When the larger animal species loses their fear of people and associates them with food instead of danger, we have trouble. Mating season is especially dangerous. Tom's tough, and people forget that until taloned, pecked, hit with wings, etc.
Kick them.
Jeez.
This story brings back a childhood memory of mine. When I was about 8 years old, my uncle raised turkeys. They weren't the dumb white ones. They were, I believe, considered game birds. They were dark colored like wild turkeys, but they were larger and not quite as wild and weren’t as good at flying. These birds roamed the barnyard. Us kids had to keep an eye out for these crazy birds because they would attack viciously. And I mean they were relentless. It was like a war zone and they were always trying to sneak up on us. There were 2 dogs around that would defend us. A golden, and a large fox terrier. These birds only had half their feathers from their tangles with the dogs. And I didn't feel one bit sorry for those birds either. They were mean, and they didn't run from those dogs without putting up a fight first. And it seems to me the dogs didn't alway win. We couldn't count on the dogs always being around though. So we started carrying baseball bats with us. Boy, I still remember whacking those dam birds so hard I'd swear I was killing them. But it didn't seem to hurt them much. THey’d just run off and a little while later, they'd be back trying to attack again.
Whatever happened to professional courtesy?
Send a few out here. I’d like to scare the willies out of the crew at my local post office.
How weird. We had wild turkey in our backyard for two days recently. We live MILES from any wooded area. He was enormous.
I know that the increased home building is driving the wild creatures out of their habitat.
Geez. There’s got to be a good way to trap them if they are flying in your truck. Bet they make good eating.
The turkeys went postal?!!!
