The most enjoyable part of seeing summer birds is watching the hatchlings grow into poults and grow large enough to make it through the first winter. I like seeing turkeys and seeing turkeys makes me happy and I like being happy.
Being a turkey hunter seeing flocks increase in size is always a good thing when it comes to my obsession. Hunting turkeys is difficult enough without having to search high and low for birds. Even with abundant flocks my success rate is pretty low. Maybe as my skills increase long with a better success rate looking for eligible targets will become a new challenge. Nah, I doubt it. Local healthy flocks are good and I can travel to other areas if the need arises to make the game any more difficult.
The first cut of hay has been baled which brings a few more broods into view. Knee high grasses do a fantastic job of hiding full grown hens. The poults are almost impossible to spot unless the hens give away the locations.Just before the hay was cut two hens were crossing the field down the road. Their heads bobbed and weaved with each step and occasionally a small bird was flapping away managing to rise just above the grass before settling down. There might have been one or there might have been one hundred small turkeys trying to fly. They reminded me of watching kernels of corn explode inside an old air-pop machine we use at home. They suddenly appeared before settling back to pop back into the air. The field is just over two hundred yards away from where I took my only spring longbeard and I wonder if any of the pop-corn flight poults was its kin? I sure hope so.
 |
| These three hens hav about a dozen poults with them. These were spotted in a field about 150 yards away and the camera lens isn't good enough to make them visible. |
 |
| Spotted this brood of two hens and six (as best as I was able to count) poults. Some of the poults are visible as the small fuzz just ahead of the left-most hen. |
 |
| Another small brood to keep an eye upon |
