Saturday, May 30, 2009

Camera Critters: Wild Turkey Brawl


Turkey mating season is winding down in our area, and it is almost impossible to hear a bird gobbling, but it seems some of the males are still looking for a good brawl. After several less than ideal mornings, today was cool and clear with patchy fog, a beautiful morning to be afield.

Shortly after dawn a few first year bearded gobblers known as "Jakes" arrived and fed in the meadow some distance away. As the rays of the early morning sun touched the meadow, another small group of Jakes arrived on the scene. Soon the two groups had a tremendous falling out and a violent fight began. It was mostly between two birds, but occasionaly some of the others entered the fray.


The Battle Begins

Anything Goes!

It appeared that they would actually ram into each other, leap in the air and kick at their opponent, and sometimes grab him by the neck.

"I'll Show You!"

This continued for several minutes. The photo below is somewhat unusual because it is hard to tell what body parts belong to what bird. As best as I can tell the tails sticking out to left and right below to the two combatants, while the center bird walked between the two and his tail is not easily visible, as it is not fanned out.

Stranglehold

In time the combatants were totally exhausted, laid down in the grass and rested for several minutes.

Taking A Break

Eventually they recovered and resumed the battle for several more minutes before vanishing into the nearby woodland.

For more Camera Critters photos, Click Here!

14 comments:

Marie Reed said...

I am sending this link DIRECTLY to my mother in law! We were just talking about turkeys! We are French so have never seen wild turkeys! I was telling her that they ofter sleep in trees and she didn't believe me! She certainly couldn't believe what huge and majestic birds they are. Now I have proof! Amazing!

Unknown said...

Great action shots! Almost like a dance. My critters are fighting today too but not as gracefully as yours.

Kerri Farley said...

Wonderful shots of the turkeys in action! Wow!! I bet that was FUN to watch!!

said...

Is this where the phrase "tough old bird" comes from?! Wow!

SaraG said...

Great photo's Willard!
I really enjoy your blog!
Take care and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Anonymous said...

I never knew turkeys would fight like that. Amazing photos.

Anonymous said...

That is WILD! Great that you were there to see it and capture it for us to share. Well done, Willard!

Unknown said...

Amazing you caught these shots. Looked like one heck of a turkey fight!

Anonymous said...

Mom used to raise turkeys. Big old white ones and they would do this now and then. I don't remember much about it as I was young and had my mind on a lot of other things.

These are very nice photos.

You probably don't remember when people lived and died at home and endured wakes. I wrote about it here. http://bing-it.blogspot.com/

Unknown said...

Very cool action shots of the turkeys going at it...

Must have been quite funny to watch !!!

Ken Conger Photography said...

Great series and interesting post. Lots of super action shots. Well done. Blue Skies.

Tom said...

A fantastic series of shots here Willard.. Last year I learned much about your White Tails.. this year I have learnt much about Turkeys. I wish we had these in the wild over here.. I'm always pleased to see one of our Game birds.. I would be very happy to see these.

Tom
My daily blogs: Wiggers World and Picture & Words

NatureStop said...

This is our first visit to your blog and liked what we saw.The Turkey's in action were great shots!!Will be following:)

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Willard: Don't know how I missed this but it would have been my loss. What a neat set of photos.