Hot chick wearing nothing but feathers! Pictures!!

[skybytch 259]

A flock of turkeys has taken up residence on the property. One of the hens came down to the house for a visit yesterday. 

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

Are they aggressive?

There was a flock of turkeys in my neighborhood a few years back. They showed up in the fall and hung out (river a block away, parks, cemetery and lots of small wooded areas). They got picked of one at a time by cars, until they didn't get out of the way of a freight train one day (that was a big mess). 
There was one tom left. He got pretty big and was known for chasing kids. 
And the mail carrier. He'd attack her truck whenever he saw it. Not his reflection in it, but the wheel or the door.

We named him 'Kevin' for some reason.

And 'nice try' on the thread title. I had a feeling it was about birds. 

[ryoder 1,380]

There is a flock of them on Flagstaff Mountain (overlooking Boulder), but they are shy as hell and stay away from people. The only reason I noticed them was because I was on a bicycle and happened to get fairly close before they saw me and ran. I've seen them twice, but could never get close enough to get a photo.

[skybytch 259]

On 5/10/2021 at 7:01 AM, wolfriverjoe said:

Are they aggressive?

Not at all.  The hen has been cruising around the house quite a bit lately but one bark from the dog and she's outta here. 

There are multiple flocks in the area.  Oddly enough we see more deer and skunk road kill than turkeys. 

I wish I had a camera handy yesterday when I watched a hawk swoop down, pick up a mouse and fly off with it from about 75 feet away, after watching him eat one in a tree the day before. 

[JayB 0]

Turkeys in Avon Connecticut were chasing children waiting for school bus to get them to drop their lunch bags/snacks...   One night I had left garage door open and when I went into garage (pitch black) all this flurry instantly took place and scared the hell out of me....dropped into a fighting stance only to realize there were a whole mess of turkeys flying out of the garage.

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

Well, on the 'wildlife in the backyard' topic...

I have bunnies.

I hadn't touched my garden until last weekend. It had grown a pretty good crop of weeds & grass (maybe 12"-18").

I thought about just running the tiller through it all, but doing that does more to 'transplant' the weeds than tear them out (and wraps them around everything under the tiller too).

So I started yanking them out by hand. Maybe 5 handfuls in, I found a nest of baby bunnies. Really young, maybe 3" long and eyes still not open. Yay.
I've had friends deal with this and have read a few articles on it, so I'm not completely ignorant. And I don't hate them. I know people who consider them nuisance pests and will kill the babies and destroy the nests. I'll kill some things (rats, mice & chipmunks), but I don't have an issue with bunnies.
I know moving the nest would likely doom the babies.
So I yanked the weeds from everywhere but the corner where the nest is. I was hoping that mom bunny would see the nest is exposed and move them.
Next morning, she had put a bunch of fur over them to hide and insulate them.

So I ran the tiller through the garden, but left the corner with the nest untouched. Again, hoping mom would move them. 
Nope. She covered the nest with uprooted weeds, sticks & stems and a couple coffee filters (I put my grounds & filters in the compost pile and there are always filters have buried). 

I put tomatoes, peppers & cukes in this year. I don't have anything the bunnies would likely eat. I've had broccoli, kale & brussels sprouts in years past, and had to fence it to keep the bunnies from eating it. 
I startled mom early one morning, she ran to the edge of the yard & stopped. I went back inside and looked out a window to see her moving slowly through the garden, browsing on weeds. Yes, mom bunny is helping weed the garden. 

They're getting bigger and the eyes are open. They twitch and move away whenever I get close. If I've got to put up with them, I get to look close. 

I mentioned to a neighbor that I've got tomatoes in the middle, cukes in one corner, peppers in one corner and baby bunnies in another corner. 
His comment:
"Sounds like the makings of a pretty good stew."

[gowlerk 1,902]

On 6/5/2021 at 11:10 AM, wolfriverjoe said:

They're getting bigger and the eyes are open. They twitch and move away whenever I get close. If I've got to put up with them, I get to look close. 

We get bunny nests in our city lot yard nearly every year. Probably every year, but we don't always find them under the tree in the corner. They usually get found and eaten by crows before they leave the nest. They are always in the neighbourhood, but the population stays pretty steady. And I suppose predation is the reason.

Edited June 7, 2021 by gowlerk

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

Oh yeah.

We've got hawks & bald eagles in the area.

Not too many 'ground based' predators (no foxes or coyotes, very few free roaming dogs).
I think there's five of them. I don't expect all 5 to make it. If every bunny that was ever born survived to produce offspring (and all those offspring survived & reproduced), we'd be buried in bunnies pretty quickly.

They're getting bigger & have left the 'hole' nest. They sort of stay together, and are hiding under the vines & weeds in the corner that I left alone. 
They bounce around in that area a bit, and I've seen them out in the open garden area a couple times. 

I got a few pics, but I can't load directly onto this computer. I'll post them in a couple days.

[gowlerk 1,902]

This bunny has been hanging around the yard for about a month now. We aren't sure what happened to its ears, but April has named him Lucky.

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

Well, the little ones have gone MIA. 
The weeds around where they were hiding were somewhat 'trampled' but nothing was torn up. No signs of blood, fur or body parts.

 

Entirely possible mom saw me harassing them and moved them.