Why Did the Turkey Cross the Road?

Just a few days before "spring gobbler season" opens up to licensed hunters in Virginia, and with youth turkey hunting already upon us, this one might really got me going yesterday. 

"Gobble gobble"

Sometime in the early afternoon yesterday, one of my buddies sent me a text saying "There's a turkey by the Toys R Us parking lot just walking around". 

A few minutes later, I got multiple emails and Facebook notifications saying similar things.  I was hooked immediately and was watching the situation unfold from my phone and Facebook newsfeed.

I used to work for that Toys "R" Us store in Loudoun County during my high school years, and though I do not hang my hat there anymore, I try to still keep in touch with some of my old friends and coworkers there. 

It's a good way of not burning bridges and once in a while, some interesting wildlife information is spread between all of us.

This was a perfect example of that spreading of wildlife information.  It's important to know and I find it fascinating.

I get texts and emails similar to this (though usually with different species) every few days or so from various friends and contacts all over northern Virginia.  Usually I just refer them to various wildlife agencies to ask for advice, but for this one, I knew it seemed to be under control already and had an idea of where the turkey had come from nearby.

For wild turkeys, it is basically breeding season right now.  They are fluttering all over with the males starting to really "strut their stuff" during the day.  The one pictured and in question is most likely a female (also called a hen).  She lacks a beard (bristled feathers near her neck and breast) that would usually be a giveaway that it is a male.

So why did the turkey cross the road?  Well, who knows.  Maybe she wandered off farm land and wooded land too far and just go lost.  Maybe she was being chased by male suitors all day.  I like to think that maybe she was going in the general direction of the Total Wine store very close to grab a six-pack of her favorite brew, but that's probably not the case.

Either way, I do not know the exact outcome of what happened to her but hope to find out shortly.

As for the multiple friends and former coworkers who tipped me on this information, I say a very big thank you for keeping in touch with me and for sharing this.

A 4 Month Long Wait

 

I've been doing a little bit of a test to see what happens when I leave a camera up for a long time.  This was to test the camera, the batteries, water-resistance, and my own human scent near the camera. 

Usually I'll leave a camera up for a week to three weeks before checking it.

The test camera was left alone for 4 months and 2 days.  It sat through the hot days at the end of summer, through heavy rains, and recently, flurries of snow.

I gave volunteers the GPS coordinates, trail description, and a description of the camera.  They were then sent them off to find it in the wilder parts of Fairfax County, Virginia.

It was a fun game for them to try to see who would be the one to locate it first.

The best part though, was getting the emails of the pictures after they checked the camera's SD card.

We were hoping for foxes and coyotes, because in theory, our human scent should have been at an extreme minimum since it was there for 4 months.

No coyotes or foxes were photographed, but the favorite animals photographed seemed to be the wild turkeys. 

The pictures were taken near the end of September.

There's no word yet on whether or not these turkeys made it to Thanksgiving.



Happy Thanksgiving!

There's no way this blog is having a Thanksgiving themed post without a picture of a camera-trapped, wild turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving, folks.

Switchback Turkeys

Raccoons will touch the camera, open the camera, and even try to take the camera home.

Foxes will bark at it and shy away from it.

Bears get curious around it and may even tear it down (going to do a post on the "Broken Camera" shortly).

Turkeys. . well . . turkeys are a whole lot different around the camera.  27 out of 31 turkeys that have shown up on my camera do the exact same thing.

They realize the camera is there from a distance of about 3 to 15 meters away and will creep up towards it. It's not a straight walk to the camera though, it's a time consuming trot that takes the turkey on a winding path to the front of camera until I get a picture like this, where the animal is comfortably close:

Winding back and forth from 2 to 6 times, the turkey makes a lot of switchbacks until it gets right up to the camera. It will go from left to right, onward past the camera, then back in front of the camera from right to left, over and over again.

The beast then stares the camera-trap right in the eye (lens), and then goes off to something else.

It's weird.   Is the turkey scared of the shiny object in the woods?  Is this what turkeys always do with predators, other turkeys, or metal boxes?  Is this what they always do when curious?  So many questions.

This camera has been set to its video mode so it can better record this behavior.  More results should pour in, in about 2 weeks.

Another camera about 30 miles from this one may be checked tomorrow.  The heat and humidity of Virginia this week has not stopped checking camera-traps yet.

Checking the Cams Before the Storm

Today was a successful day for me, even with a good thunderstorm that seemed to come out of nowhere.

I had to take a college exam in the morning, so I got that out of the way first.  I did a few errands as well, but eventually the time came for me to head out into one of Northern Virginia’s wilder areas to see what results a few of my cameras had gotten.

A good sized snapping turtle.

A good amount of turtles were out wandering the paths with me, so I decided to snap a few pictures of them.

Eastern box turtle taking a soak.

Another box turtle.

Nothing good came out the first camera-trap I checked.  It took 6 pictures of the woods (false triggers) and 4 pictures of white-tailed deer before the batteries ran out.  It only ran for a few hours.  I loaded it with new batteries and made sure it was working. 

On to the next!

The second camera is in a fantastic, picturesque setting that features a background of silver-green autumn olive trees.

It only took 19 pictures of white-tailed deer, a few of raccoons, and a few of groundhogs though.

By the time I left this camera, storm clouds were billowing up to a great height in the sky.  Time was running short.

I sped up to go to the next camera but as soon as I got there, the clouds opened up with an amazing array of lightning and thunder.  I quickly downloaded the pictures from the SD card in the camera, to my laptop.

I got back to a building before the hail came down and sat down to view the pictures that I had just downloaded, but not seen yet. 

Here is what I saw:

Pileated Woodpecker!  A new cam-trapped species for me.

White-tailed deer.  Notice the buttons growing from its head that are soon to be full antlers.

Solo Turkey

This is the turkey that I mentioned in my last post (Another Fox Meal).

It walked right in front the camera without seeming to care at all. 

That's the great thing about using camera traps (trail cameras, game cameras) for research surveys of animals. Animals seem to care less if there is an unmanned camera around, than they would have if a person was standing there

Camera traps offer a way to view wildlife in ways that we wouldn't see if a person was present.

If a human was around, animals would be even more wary and scared.

All in all, it was just another day in the great outdoors for this gobbler.

Another Fox Meal

Today was another one of those busy camera trapping days.  I've got so many cameras under my control that it is beginning to get difficult to remember where exactly they are.  No fear though, I've got the locations of all of them drawn on maps, on a piece of paper, in my phone's GPS, and on my computer.

I put this camera on a popular game trail in Leesburg, Va.  It is a trail that leads to one of the fox dens I have another camera at.

A fox appeared of course, and was carrying a large meal.  A muskrat was in its mouth, being dragged towards the den.

Muskrats are supposedly plentiful in this area, as Goose Creek is very close.  Goose Creek is a small river flowing in Loudoun County.  It is a tributary of the Potomac River, which flows past D.C. and empties into the Chesapeake Bay.

This camera had other visitors, including a skunk, deer, another fox, squirrels, and a single wild turkey.

Other good news is that I now have permission to camera-trap in Alexandria, Virginia on a very large piece of property.

I still have to decide if I will be able to make the drive down there once a month or so now since I have cameras in so many towns around here already.

"How about any wild turkeys in your area?"

A few days ago I received an email from one of my readers** (we'll call her by her initials: J. H. in this blog),  regarding wild turkeys.  In it, she detailed that in her area wild turkey reintroducing had been an ongoing project and wondered if I had any around where I live.

The answer to her and any other readers is yes.  I've seen a few wild turkeys in Sterling and Great Falls alike.  I have also seen them off the Appalachian Trail as it borders Loudoun County, Virginia near Clarke County and also at the land adjacent to the Potomac River near Lowes Island in Virginia.

A camera that I had set up at the end of last year in Sterling, Va, captured one of these turkeys.

The odd thing about this turkey is that it is walking in a spot about 10 feet from the den of a red fox, a predator that could easily take advantage of this opportunity.

Another odd thing is that it is not in a flock.  Usually turkeys will travel in a small groups, especially during the colder months of the year.





Maybe this turkey got lost.  Maybe it is the only one that survived a series of attacks by predators.  Who knows, maybe the camera was triggered by more turkeys, but only snapped a picture of this one.

Wild turkeys feed mostly on small nuts and seeds (acorns, beechnuts, hickory nuts, and grass-grains) and small animals such as insects and slugs.

I believe that this turkey was feeding on a slugs because under just about every single leaf it walked on, lies a buffet of slugs.

Here is another picture from this site to show you where exactly the fox den is.

**A special thanks to blog reader, J. H. for providing me with a wealth of information and for inquiring about turkeys around where I camera trap.