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.
wild turkey
April 24, 2011
Peonies have broken ground: skinny red claws reaching for the light. The whining clucks of a hen turkey separated from the flock.
April 14, 2011
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.
March 22, 2011
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.
February 18, 2011
I hear voices: snowmelt whispering, murmuring, sighing, gurgling a hundred ways at once. Up in the newly bare field, a turkey gobbles.
October 28, 2010
Sun blazes through a newly open woods, glossy on the backs of wild turkeys: nine hens and two jakes, who keep pausing to fan their tails.
June 16, 2010
Just inside the woods, the soft clucks of a hen turkey trailed by a single chick. A thrush song sounds like a threnody—slow, sad notes.
May 19, 2010
Cool and quiet—a thoroughly dull morning, I’m thinking. Just then a hen turkey lands in the yard with a clamor of wings and saunters off.
April 27, 2010
A groundhog emerges from the stream and climbs the roadbank. I glance away for a moment and a turkey takes his place, shining like obsidian.
April 8, 2010
The miniature daffodils around the dog statue have shriveled in the night. Turkeys display at the edge of the field, reversible blooms.
April 3, 2010
Such a startling and ridiculous sound, the turkey’s gobble—like gargling with marbles. And then a blue-headed vireo’s quiet soliloquy.
June 2, 2009
A passing shower. In the tall weeds of the old corral, the plaintive yelps of a wild turkey hen trying to keep track of her foraging chicks.
April 13, 2008
Jurassic silhouettes of wild turkeys against the brown and green field. A cold rain. Maple blossoms glow orange and scarlet in the woods.