Mary spotted this Wild Turkey from our kitchen window yesterday afternoon. It’s a Rio Grande Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo intermedia) and I think it’s a female.

She called to me and told me what it was. I grabbed my camera and headed to the kitchen. My first shot was from inside through the window and it wasn’t very good. I don’t have a long telephoto lens – the longest I have is a 24mm – 70mm zoom, so I had to get closer.

I walked outside and fortunately her car was in the carport so I could hide behind it and get some more shots. They still weren’t very good so I had to walk closer to it. When it saw me it started walking away and I only got one more shot. It was actually inside our  fence and when I got much closer, I could hear it flap its wings and get away. I didn’t see it flying because it was behind some trees.

We’ve been hearing them gobbling fairly close to the house, mainly in the evenings. Last week as I was on our road, one crossed in front of the car and calmly kept walking.

They’re very wary and we’ve occasionally been rewarded with glimpses of them, but never one so close to the house. I know they can fly because once, while on a hike with Dixie, our Border Collie, we came across a flock of them and Dixie took off after them. They took to the air and landed in some nearby oaks.

Their ideal habitat is an open woodland or savanna which describes our property fairly well. They are omnivores and will consume acorns and berries as well as lizards, snakes, and frogs.

Interestingly, the Aztecs domesticated the southern Mexican subspecies. The Spanish took this domesticated bird back to Europe and later it became a farmyard animal in France and Britain. By 1620, it was so common that the Pilgrims brought some with them, unaware that there were close relatives in the forests of Massachusetts.