"Out & About" Photo Blog: Deer & Wild Turkey Day<br/>April 12th, 2016

A group of us went to Lynde Shores today. The day started slowly. It felt like we were only going to see ducks, geese & some chickadees. But there were Red-wings, Bluejays, Cardinals and Downy, Hairy & Red-headed woodpeckers. I didn't shoot any of them though. I just enjoyed watching them.

Then I saw a slight flash of white in the woods. It had to be a white-tailed deer, I thought. It was.

They blend in so well with the brush. Without the flash of white, I would have missed this one for sure.

The deer here spook fairly easily, but they're a bit more accepting of humans at Lynde Shores than most places.

I took this shot, not realizing there was a second deer. I only saw the second one when I saw the shot on the screen. These two were near Chickadee Trail.

Squirrels don't get much attention when there are deer & turkeys around.

No wonder these ones are named Red Squirrels.

Three of us were hanging around the parking lot, wondering where the others were, when one of them wandered by... saying there were 6 or 8 deer up the road, a few hundred yards away.

Two of us headed there for a look-see, expecting the deer to be long gone... the usual case. But we ended up seeing a bunch. :-)

As per the Red Squirrel, it's no wonder these are named White-tailed Deer. When danger threatens, they raise their white tail, exposing their white rump, as they exit stage right. It still surprises me a little, just how large the white flash is.

Keeping an eye on photographers. We were on both sides of them. They were watching the other guy when I took this.

Tired of us, they headed into the woods.

I love seeing deer. I've been on an African safari and seen any number of exotic animals, but as wonderful as that was, I'm still thrilled seeing our local wildlife.

Wild Turkeys are common at Lynde Shores, but today was a record for me. There were 30 or so, scattered through the woods.

I was thinking today how little I really know about them, so I did some googling. They were extinct in Ontario for 100 years, so they introduced 274 of them from the US in 1984. Today there are estimated to be between 80,000 and 100,000 in the province. And they're working their way north, as far as North Bay.

I thought this was interesting:

Ontario traded 18 River Otters to Missouri in exchange for turkeys.
More came from Iowa, where Ontario had sent Canada Geese some years prior.
To New York went 120 Hungarian Partridge.
New Jersey and Vermont both provided some birds that had been given to them during turkey spawning programs.
And 50 moose from Algonquin Park were sent to Michigan in exchange for turkeys.

A group of turkeys is a flock... but also a crop, gang, posse or raffle. Posse sounds cool.

Wild Turkeys don't just gobble. They also cluck, putt, purr, yelp, cutt, whine, cackle and kee-kee. I'll let you try to figure out what those sounds are. They even spit we're told.

Males can also 'drum', much like the booming of prairie chickens.

Males are toms or gobblers, females are hens... all young are poults, but young males are also known as jakes and young females as jennys.

Then there are the turkey body parts... wattles, snoods, beards. And caruncles... fleshy bumps on the head and neck. The bright red appendages on their necks are wattles. They're fleshy and blood-filled, so they can change color, depending if they're alarmed, in mating season, etc.

The snood is the fleshy thing hanging over their beaks. It can change color too. To me, turkeys look like birds designed by a committee.

Though I think turkeys have gorgeous feather coloring, moreso because of their iridescence, no one can change my mind about their faces... faces only a mother could love.

Hens are a little less ugly, but not by much. They remind me of Vultures.

We all want the toms to spread their tails so we can see their fanned tail feathers. They're chocolate brown in this species. Their wattles add color... bright red when filled with blood. They can be pink or white or red or blue though.

The toms hope their puffed chests & fanned tails will impress the females.

The beards that hang down from their chest are hairlike, thin feathers according to the experts. Males have the beards but one reference said some females do too.