Safety in Numbers?

We looked out of our window this morning to see a big flock of wild turkeys massing in front of our barn.

It’s not unusual to see them in the woods, or even to have to stop the car for on or two of them them on the lane .

But an entire “rafter”? (That’s what a flock of wild turkeys is called, unless they’re all male, in which case they ‘re called a “posse”.) Right out in the open, at the beginning of Thanksgiving week?

Coincidence? I don’t think so….
It’s like they’re thinking “Where we go one, we go all”, or “What’re they gonna do, kill us ALL?”

Turkeys are very canny. As I said it’s not difficult to spot them here usually, EXCEPT when someone is hunting them. We had a friend who came every year, and never saw one. They seemed to know he was a threat as soon as he drove up our driveway, and they would disappear (not easy; those birds are huge) only to strut out again as he drove out, balked of his prey.

(Well, they’re safe here: I’ll be hunting down a Butterball bird for my table.)

Let me be the first to wish Simon, and the Ettes, and Et ceterae

a very Happy Thanksgiving!