It must be the season for birds. We live in a small canyon in the Oakland hills, the upper part of which is still pretty wild. We’ve known for awhile that we had a flock of wild turkeys living up the canyon – early morning walkers would find them foraging around the field behind the tennis club.
Last night after dinner my husband said, “We have turkeys in the back yard.” And we did – three of them. They foraged around for quite a while and then walked out and explored the block for awhile before wandering off up the hill. I got some photos, click here to see a slideshow.
Lovely beasts! The term “you turkey” was definitely not coined on their account. We had WTs in our Grand Lake (Oakland) neighborhood, but I haven’t spotted them since – er – last Thanksgiving…
You and Berkeley Prof Brad DeLong must live relatively near one another. He occasionally finds turkeys in his back yard too.
Well, we probably both live in the East Bay hills, Linkmeister. Given that they run from Richmond to San Jose, which is a little over 50 miles, that’s quite a range to define as “relatively near.” You can find turkeys almost anywhere in the upper hills. In fact, a columnist in the Montclarion recently reported on a woman who left her front door open because the weather was nice and found her house occupied by a hen turkey and her ten little turkey-lets! Evicted without damage to anyone, but there they are…