Among the pets is a wild turkey roaming freely

There are two huge French walnut trees growing on a ranch I once owned in the California Sierras. I was standing in their shade one early summer day a few years ago when there, at my feet, I spied a large feather. It was a turkey feather – and it was on my ranch! A quick look around produced a breathtaking sight – there in the dust were turkey tracks! On my ranch! I had wild turkeys!

From the time I learned to read I have been fascinated with stories of the outdoors and about the wildlife that inhabits mountains, deserts, forests, oceans, streams and fencerows. In these stories, the elusive wild turkey often provided food for settlers and Indians skillful enough to hunt them. Outdoor magazines printed countless stories of how difficult it was to stalk these secretive and stealthy icons of the forest. I grew up in a semi-rural area where small farms, orchards and dairies were common, and where families sometimes kept livestock in the backyard. There were possums in the hay barn, ferrets along the riverbank, gopher snakes and horned toads, owls and pheasants. Lots of folks raised, chickens, ducks, rabbits – and turkeys. But, though I often hid out in the willows along the river watching wildlife, I never saw a wild turkey.

Over time, of course, I realized I wouldn’t see a wild turkey where I lived. No real woods and too many people. The mountains that rose to the north had them, I was sure. Because mountains had woods and meadows and I knew that wild turkeys lived in the meadows and the woods. It would, however, be a long time before I saw one in the wild.

In fact, I have over the years fished, hunted and hiked in the West through miles of woods, across acres of meadows and up a dozen mountains and the closest I got to a wild turkey was to see where one had been. The wild turkey had become almost mythological to me; seeing one in the wild an unattainable goal. Oh, I’ve seen lots of turkey tracks. Tracks, but never the specter that left them.

Other people saw wild turkeys. Some hunters (and birders) I know, dress in the most outlandish costumes to stalk these denizens. Camouflaged from head to toe, some wearing masks, they set out with turkey-call in hand to bag a bird. Few do, I’m told. And that was easy for me to understand because – well, because legend says that one just doesn’t go out and spot a wild turkey. Well, now I’m not so sure.

It was another year before I saw my first wild, wild turkey. And then it was down the road a mile or so from my ranch gate. Not just one turkey, but a flock, herd, rafter or bunch – whatever more than two turkeys together are called. All of a sudden, there they were, calmly grazing up the side of a hill through some scrub oak. Though I stopped my truck, jumped out and gawked, they paid me no mind at all as they grazed slowly over the hill and out of sight. That was it. No surprise encounter in a forest glade, no sudden rush of wings as a big tom leaps from hiding, no chance glimpse of a shadowy form disappearing in the undergrowth. Nope, just a bunch of blue-black barnyard fowl scratching in the oak leaves as they trailed up the hill. Disappointed? Absolutely not! They were beautiful.

Oh, how I wanted to bag a wild turkey for Thanksgiving! It would complete one of my many unfilled ambitions for wildlife adventures. As the turkeys wandered off into the underbrush, my goal to bag one wandered with them.

My next sighting was a year later at Elkhorn Ranch in Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico. A flock of about 30 birds crossed the road in front of me near some cattle pens. There were several large hens. The rest were young ones of various sizes. They, too, seemed supremely unperturbed that I was around. In fact, the wild turkeys on the Elkhorn have become fixtures, easily seen nearly every day in the woods and on the driveway near the ranch house. I suspect they’ve learned that the lady of the ranch, an avowed bird lover, may be leaving some incentive for them on the ground.

Wild turkey behavior, I have learned, can be bizarre. Elkhorn Ranch reports watching a gobbler and a buck deer exhibit aggressive behavior toward each other. The turkey pecked his way up close to the deer. The grazing deer tossed his head at the bird. The gobbler puffed, spread his tail and threatened the buck. The deer tossed his antlers again and quick-stepped toward the bird. The gobbler quickly shut down and moved off a discreet distance.

Another friend reports additional strange wild turkey behavior at his ranch in Shingle Springs, California. He said that turkeys regularly gather on the lawn area of his ranch house. In the spring, the gobblers strut about and occasionally fight. He tells me he can walk right up to two fighting birds and they will ignore him completely. Any other time they keep their distance from him. Now, that’s concentration.

I’ve often wondered about conflicts between species. I once had a horse that would chase cats. If one had the temerity to wander into her pasture, she would amble toward it slowly, then put her nose close to the ground and chase that cat at a gallop. She never caught one, but she always gave them a good run – under the fence or up a tree.

Well, all of this has not done much for my sense of wonder about these big, goofy looking birds. I mean, fighting with deer – and ignoring my friend while fighting with each other; not exactly how a “Ghost of the Woods” should behave. Wily and secretive, not hardly; except, of course, in hunting season. I’ve never hunted turkeys, but many who have told me they are all but impossible to find. It’s as if they just move out the day before the season opens.

The wild turkey is an American original. One species roamed Mexico and another, North America. Spanish explorers discovered that the local people in southern Mexico had domesticated the bird and took some back with them to Spain. When it appeared in England, it was promptly dubbed “turkey” as it was believed they had been imported from that country. The Pilgrims brought specimens back to the “New World” where they were interbred with the wild Northern species in an effort to increase their size. The domesticated version of this peripatetic wildfowl has become a staple in the diet of the people in its homeland.

Unlike their long-legged, fast flying, self-reliant cousins of the forest, domestic market turkeys are huge, can’t fly and are unable to breed without assistance. Millions are produced every year and there is little likelihood of extinction. But, like so many game birds and animals, there was a time not so long ago when the wild turkey had all but disappeared from much of its habitat. Skillful management practices, including special breeding programs, have brought it back. Wild turkeys are again populating broad ranges where for years they were rarely seen.

So, did I have a particular wild turkey as a wild, wild pet? Yes, I did. And it qualifies in every respect because it feeds and cares for itself, roams freely in the woods around the ranch and occasionally leaves tracks in the dust under the French walnut trees. Of course, I haven’t seen it yet – but I know it’s there. I still fantasize that some early morning I would emerge quietly from my cabin and there he’d be – under the walnut tree – this time standing in his tracks. If I were there, would I shoot it? Absolutely not!




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