The first sign, enormous green bird scat. I don't associate green scat with turkeys, and at first wondered if this was Canada goose spoor, though it didn't look quite right. We had a long enough period of warm weather that a bunch of greenery sprang up on the forest floors; might be adding some variety to everyone's usual winter diet.
Wandering around off the beaten track a little I found another scat, this time associated with some nice clear turkey tracks--fresh, because still relatively crisp in the last little bit of snow remaining after the long period of the melt.
My guess is that the turkeys passed just a few hours before, and I could have seen them if I'd just glanced out a window at the right moment.
Troutgrrrl of Science and Sarcasm writes of a turkey roost near her home--the turkeys go to bed at 5:00. It's been my experience too that turkeys are early to bed, and not all that early to rise, so it probably would have been full daylight when they passed.
2 comments:
Cool post Pamela. I wonder if all this green poop and red pee is related to the fact that there is so much green plant material still around - it's not been frozen as hard or as many times as it normally is by mid January. I bet there's not been as much degradation to brownish, damaged plant tissue. Just a thought.
Our turkeys are slowly sneaking their bedtime a bit later as the day lengthens, but only to 5:20 or so.
Hi Troutgrrrl--I think that's the answer for the green scat. There was lots of new growth around when I saw it. And the grass uncovered by the melt was still green too. I also saw a deer scat that was a mass of not quite formed pellets--something you usually see in spring, a reaction to their first meals of green stuff. Strange year--after dropping very low for a couple of days, temperatures here are rising to above freezing again, with rain expected tomorrow!
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