Camera Critters: Eastern Wild Turkey And Squirrels

While waiting for the wily wild turkey to appear one often sees other species of wildlife such as gray squirrels and fox squirrels.  When I was young there were plenty of gray squirrels in our area, but one seldom encountered a fox squirrel.

Gray Squirrel

Today we have a thriving fox squirrel population.  These animals are much larger with a different coloration than the gray squirrel.

Fox Squirrel

Observing these animals helps one pass the time until the primary subject arrives, and sometimes photographing them can be as rewarding as the larger birds and animals, yet the squirrels do not thrill one as much as when a large gobbler appears close to the photographic blind and lets loose with a tremendous gobble.

Mature Eastern Wild Turkey Gobbler

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Scientific Wildlife Management?

6x6 Bull Elk-Hunt Zone 2

Many who support the Pennsylvania elk hunt, as it is currently implemented, base their defense of the season on scientific grounds. It seems they focus on three major points. 1. Science demands that there be a hunt. 2. The number and quality of large bulls has increased since the hunt began. 3. We have a healthier herd today as a result of the hunt.

Few would contest that science and scientific management is a fine thing, but is our wildlife managed by scientific principles?
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Camera Critters: Turkeys And Whitetails

Mature Easter Wild Turkey Gobblers

Spring is a dramatic and beautiful time of year and my primary focus at this point is documenting turkey activity and the emerging leaves and flowers.  Later my attention will shift more toward the whitetail deer as antlers increase in size and the new fawns are born.

Antler growth has been very slow until recemntly, but the older bucks have made a noticeable gain in antler size in the past week.

The Buck's Antlers Develop

Deer are not their most photogenic at this time as the winter coat has a faded, ragged appearance and a lot of the hair is loose and falling out.  By late May or early June, the winter coat will be completely replaced by the beautiful, red, summer coat.

The does are pregnant and their abdomens will grow larger as spring progresses.  Most fawns in this area will be born in late May though mid-June.

Pregnant Doe-Starting To Shed The Winter Coat

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Eastern Wild Turkeys Mating-A Morning To Remember

Original content posted at  http://pawildlifephotographer.blogspot.com/ If this content appears elsewhere without being credited to Willard Hill or Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer, it is stolen content.

I have spent about 99% of my mornings in the past few weeks photographing the Eastern Wild Turkey during their mating season.  The gobblers have now gone from spending most of their time in bachelor groups to usually being seen with a flock of hens in the mornings, although I still often see them without the hens in the evenings.  Mornings are more productive for good photo opportunities as the birds are much more likely to strut and gobble.  Later in the spring, it will become more common to see the birds strutting in the evening.

On Wednesday morning I photographed and filmed  a group of mature birds gobblers strutting and gobbling directly in front of me as the first faint rays of the early morning sun casting a golden glow over the meadow.

Mature Gobblers Strutting

Suddenly I looked to the left and noticed another gobbler standing by a solitary hen that was lying on the ground.  It is quite rare to see this, and I began filming them with the Canon XL-H1 video camera.  I let it run unattended while I took a series of stills of the action.  As luck would have it the sun went behind a thin veil of clouds during the entire time that the following action took place.  The photos from this series were not as good as those of the gobblers as the birds were  further away and the increased distance combined with the murky light, resulted in the photos not being as dramatic and sharp as I would have liked.
 

Standing Guard

Soon, he walked to the hen and stood on her back.  This continued for at least ten minutes.

Standing On Her Back For Over Ten Minutes

During this time I frantically took still photos and periodically checked to see the the camcorder was working correctly, at one point putting the 70-200mm f2.8 lens on it, which with the EF adapter gave me an effective focal length of over 1400mm. This should yield dramatic footage.

Finally  the birds completed mating, with the actual process only taking  a short time.  I have photographed turkeys since 1974 and do not recall having seen or photographed this before.

Mating

With mating completed, the gobbler jumped away and the birds ran about, circling each other and then left the meadow.

With Mating Completed, The Gobbler Leaves

I have found that observing and photographing nature is one of the most rewarding experiences in life.  If one is in a hunting type situation they may observe wildlife behavior to a certain extent, especially of species they are not hunting on that particular day, but they do not get to witness some of the most interesting aspects of wildlife behavior as their attention is devoted to setting up a successful shot. Often the animal is either shot at or taken before anything especially noteworthy happens.