Wild Turkeys

I visited the Fenner Nature Center in Lansing, Michigan today.  Guess who's visiting their bird feeders...

Wild Turkeys! More than a dozen were a scratchin' below the feeders along side the nature center building.

Four adult males were struttin' their stuff.  The two young males in the flock stood watching on the sidelines.  Clearly they didn't have their stuff together.   And the hens seemed only interested in food.

I have never been this close to Wild Turkeys.  Their facial coloring, wattles, snoods and carbuncles reminded me of cassowaries.   These Toms were feeling the spring surge of hormones.

It was great to see how they rattle their feathers, throw their heads forward as they gobble - and use their feet as weapons.

These Michiganders were amazingly tame and oblivious to humans.

Every time I see a flock of these birds I think of Ben Franklin - and how funny (in a good way) it would have been had our founding fathers agreed to designate turkeys - instead of bald eagles - as our national bird.  Gobble, gobble, gobble.