In the past two years, wild turkeys have appeared in our back yard. The largest clutch was a tom with four hens. Wild Turkeys are large birds weighing 20 pounds or more with wing spans of up to 6 feet and like other birds often talk to one another through various "clucks."
My family delights in pointing out to me what turkeys look like since I never saw a single bird when I hunted them in Ohio (once in the same woods with Bob Evans, the sausage maker and restauranteur, but that's another story.)
I was an avid birder in my "tween" years and have since that time been very sensitive to bird calls, flight patterns and behaviour. While sitting on my deck last week, editing my book -- a seemingly never ending process -- I heard the call of a hen turkey and looked towards the sound to see two fully grown hens walking through our yard near the rock wall under the leather leaf verbena. One of them moved to the open part of our yard ten feet or so from the verbena shrub, pecking at something tasty on the ground.
From the corner of my eye, I saw movement. A Red Tailed Hawk dove from a limb high in one of the walnut trees at the edge of the woods, headed for the turkey in the open. The turkey spotted the hawk as it silently swooped on her. She squatted and ducked as the hawk went by, flying up to a dead tree limb, low on another walnut tree. Both turkeys began clucking loudly.The turkey who had been attacked ran and flew up over the rock wall wall, scurried to the tree where the hawk was perched and with her big wings, her beak and her claws, started climbing the tree trunk, going after the hawk. Seeing this, the hawk flew to a higher perch in an oak tree at the wood's edge.
"Cree, Cree," the hawk screamed. Angry clucks continued to sound from both turkeys, one standing under the verbena, the other resuming her position in the yard.
Joan opened the sliding glass door to the deck, curious about the racket, just as the hawk dove on the turkey again. The turkey held her ground, bobbing her head. The hawk pulled up and went back to the forest's edge.
The combatants now seemed content to shout at one another "Cree, Cree, Cree."
"Cluuuck, cluuk, CLUUCK! Cluuuck, cluuk, CLUUCK!"
"Cree, cree, Cluuck, CLUUCK, Cree, Cluuck, Cree, cree. CLUUCK, CLUUCK, CREEE"
A new voice from the sky above entered the fray. "Caw, Caw, Caaaw. Caaaaaww. Caaaaawww." A single crow flew over our yard, buzzing our house, speaking in an excited voice. Soon seven of his crow friends joined him, and began diving on the hawk in the tree. The hawk jumped off his perch, flying over our house with eight crows in pursuit.
As Joan and I watched the aerial show, we noticed high above the drama, a lone vulture circling, apparently anticipating a lunch in our back yard.
"From the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and each of them exists in some man, sometimes several at the time." ~~ Victor Hugo, "Les Miserables"
