Today’s winner of the photography challenge is the wild turkey. It has been quite awhile since I’ve seen one in the area. This one was just chilling in someone’s front yard next to their bench. If it hadn’t moved it’s head, I would have almost thought that the family had put out an lawn ornament.

We have had turkeys through the neighborhood before (last time was probably about two years ago), when a group was going through someone’s front yard.

What are some cool facts about turkeys:

They’re able to swim—they just tuck in their wings, spread out their tail and start kicking.

They have a well known fossil record—fossils found in the southern US & Mexico have dated turkeys back about 5 million years.

Due to dwindling numbers in the early part of the twentieth century—birds were captured and released in different areas of the US to help repopulate those areas. Now they are found in all lower 48 states, plus Hawaii and parts of Canada.

There are only two domesticated birds native to the New World: the wild turkey & the Muscovy duck.

The domesticated turkey originated in Europe—after European explorers brought back wild turkeys from Mexico (where they’d been domesticated), and then when the English showed up on the East coast—they brought the domesticated turkey with them.

Reference:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wild_Turkey/overview

I’ll be keeping an eye out for these guys this year–usually they really start coming through the neighborhood in the late summer/early fall. This one was obviously casing the neighborhood early.