"user314" (user314)
07/06/2020 at 12:32 • Filed to: None
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"user314" (user314)
07/06/2020 at 12:32 • Filed to: None | 0
| 9 |
I’m used to the occasional raccoon dropping by to pull over my trash can and see what’s to eat, but this is the first time I’ve seen a whole gaze of them on my porch.
Then again, my bird feeder does seem to draw a large variety of animals.
vondon302
> user314
07/06/2020 at 12:51 |
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I was going to say what no turkeys but nevermind.
jminer
> user314
07/06/2020 at 12:56 |
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That’s quite a bit of suburban wildlife you have there.
We’ve had a large trash panda problem this year- they keep raiding our Suet cake holders but worse ravaging our nesting birds. We’ve lost three nests to them this year.
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user314
> jminer
07/06/2020 at 13:23 |
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Yup, and that’s not even counting the birds that regularly visit, as well as the chipmunks, a mole I spotted rummaging through the bird’s leavings, a possum that also made a run at my trash can and a couple feral or stray cats that wander up and down the path from time to time.
SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
> user314
07/06/2020 at 14:01 |
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Side observation— T he wild turkeys are out of control in the upper midwest. I lived there for 20 years, decades ago, and NEVER saw one in farm country. Ever. Maybe a pic of a scrawny bird from some riparian area in NE Iowa or SE Minnesota. But they had the reputation of being “wily” and “hard to hunt” although there was always a legal hunt... Only the most patient hunter ever saw one. You’d see 1000 pheasants (non-native) or Canada geese for a single turkey sighting.
These days, I see them most trips in the country— and a couple of times could have easily mistaken the turkey for an emu or ostrich. I don’t know what’s different in the farm practices or the access to grain or the “natural predators”, but these modern-day wild turkeys are doing great.
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SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
> user314
07/06/2020 at 14:01 |
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Side observation--
facw
> SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
07/06/2020 at 14:20 |
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The turkey has made a huge comeback as they’ve been able to recolonize areas they had previous been eliminated from. We have huge numbers here in New England, and almost all of them are descended from a few dozen that were reintroduced in the 1960s: https://www.audubon.org/news/how-wild-turkeys-took-over-new-england
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SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
> facw
07/06/2020 at 14:30 |
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Thanks! The article claims the midwest populations are in decline, but I’d have to disagree on that ...
It looks to me like the population has exploded out there. Maybe it’s the mass adoption of N0-Till agriculture practices, but something’s different. I can easily believe those birds are 4 feet tall. Plus.
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SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
> facw
07/06/2020 at 14:33 |
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In Iowa they are projecting up to 10 turkeys per square mile these days... that’s a half million birds.
https://www.iowadnr.gov/portals/idnr/uploads/Hunting/history_turkey.pdf
ttyymmnn
> SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
07/06/2020 at 17:29 |
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Fetch me my blunderbuss!