It’s breeding season for wild turkeys and the other day we looked out to see a very impressive male displaying all his feathers for three bored hens.
I almost felt sorry for the male, who had puffed himself up to twice his size, elevated his handsome tail feathers and dropped his wings so that he looked like a massive, slowly rotating ball of black, silver and copper feathers. He was working hard, but the indifferent hens continued to peck their way across the lawn.
Of course, in the fullness of time, they will be left with up to a dozen chicks each, which they will probably raise cooperatively. During the summer, we can expect to see them feeding across the lawn and into the wood lot and the pasture with a flotilla of small chicks in tow.
As for the males, they will be resting up somewhere and renewing those impressive feathers. No wonder the hens are unenthusiastic.
