Overcast and damp. A tom turkey’s lusty declarations echo off the hillside, punctuated by the crisp, interrogatory whistles of a cowbird.
wild turkey
Quiet Sunday morning. Up on the hill, a turkey gobbles once every 10 minutes. I glance up from my screen and the clear sky has turned white.
The black currants are in full leaf, squat from their winter’s pruning by the deer. Down-hollow, a hen turkey yelping, a tom gobbling back.
Two chickadees inspect the old cherry stump for potential nest holes, tapping, exploring its hollow core. Up on the ridge, a turkey gobbles.
Two wild turkeys cross the road into the woods, their dark feathers shining in the sun as they disappear into the equally lustrous laurel.
In the thick fog, a wild turkey on the road looks like the small dinosaur that she is, stretching her neck to peck stones for her gizzard.
A hen turkey bursts from the cattails beside the springhouse and does a dorky fast walk past the yellow daffodils and into the woods.
A wild turkey gobbling on the far ridge. Two field sparrows trade calls, notes rising as they accelerate like engines being revved up.
Cold and windy, but the scattered cumulous clouds barely move. Up on the ridge, the plaintive call of a turkey separated from her flock.
Up in the field, a turkey erects his traveling theater and poses for an audience of two. The first hummingbird hovers in front of my face.
Peonies have broken ground: skinny red claws reaching for the light. The whining clucks of a hen turkey separated from the flock.
Sun! The gobbling of a turkey on the far side of the field, echoing off the ridge, sounds as if it’s coming from the clear blue sky.
A turkey gobbles up in the corner of the field, and five seconds later, a turkey vulture soars into view. The sky is an implacable white.
I hear voices: snowmelt whispering, murmuring, sighing, gurgling a hundred ways at once. Up in the newly bare field, a turkey gobbles.