Friday's Facts, Fascinations, and Folklore - Gobbledygook

 It pains me to give Wild Turkeys blog space - but we have seen so many of them this week in the vineyard that I just have to!  Even though I live at "Birdland" and love birds, there is one bird that we don't like seeing and that is the Wild Turkey. I can think of numerous reasons :

• For a start, it is an ugly bird!  I don't see anything attractive about it especially with: 

          their featherless head,
          their caruncle (the bright colored growths at their throat),
          their snood (the flap of skin over the beak)
          and the wattle (the flap of skin under the chin.
Too many flappy bits (all of which turn then red when the bird is upset or courting!).

• They hang out in really large groups - and look quite menacing in such large numbers. We often see them in their hundreds in the fields nearby and upto 50 or so come into the vineyard at once.

• They make a mess - leaving behind lots of guano!

• They scratch up the ground leaving it a mess too. 

• They eat grapes! So we especially hate seeing them in the vineyard.

• They are thought to eat some endangered species of salamander and frogs in CA.  Bad birds! 

• Their "song" (Ha!) - gobble - doesn't even sound nice!

So all in all - Birdland is happy to have birds here - as long as they aren't turkeys (or Canada Geese...but that's another story)!

Photo by eye of einstein

When we see a group in the vineyard, we shout "turkey alert" and rush out to try and scare them away.  We definitely don't want them getting comfortable and eating our grapes!  After a few days of that, they seem to get the message and stay out - but after a while, they will try again ...just to test us. This week has been one of those testing weeks!  But we'll keep at them......relentlessly..... and then maybe need a glass of....

Photo by *[SouLe]*

 Alternatively, anyone want to lend us their dog???