Sometimes we feel sorry for Lonely Louie, so sorry that we toss him a scoop of corn.
Flocks of wild turkeys have been visiting our yard almost daily for years. Most often we see gobbler groups. They are adult males with long beards and spurs. Once in a while a group of hens stops by to glean seeds under our bird feeders. They are sleeker than males and lack a beard. And, rarely, hens appear with a clutch of poults. An exciting event indeed!
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- A dozen or so males routinely visited the yard.
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- Rarely we would see hens with young.
About two years ago a threesome of males began visiting every day. Sometimes two or three times a day. We called them Huey, Duey and Louie. They seemed inseparable, and we never saw them alone. Late evenings we sometimes watched them flap up to tall tree branches to roost for the night.
Huey and Louie
Then, only two visited. Huey and Louie. We never learned what happened to Duey. Maybe a predator enjoyed him for a meal. Or, he may have had an accident. It is a mystery, but we continued enjoying visits by the other two.
Lonely Louie looks for corn
One day Louie showed up alone. We haven’t seen his companion since. Lonely Louie is now trully a loner. If he’s in the yard and a flock of turkeys appears Louie stays away. He seems shunned by the others. Maybe he’s just shy.
He seems to miss his two friends. So do we, but we enjoy seeing Lonely Louie and know he appreciates the scoop of corn we toss out when he arrives.
When we first moved here, we saw two huge flocks of turkeys…hens, adult males and chicks. It was amazing because the numbers were in the double digits. Now we consider ourselves blessed if we see a couple of adults and just maybe a half dozen chicks. We only saw three turkeys a week or so ago.
Thanks, Jackie. I suppose numbers go up and down over time.