Some years ago we would see two or three turkey hens leading a creche of two dozen chicks. We haven’t seen that many chicks lately, which we attribute to the fox that’s been trotting through the yard and the hawks patrolling the treetops. Recently, a hen guided her five chicks (four visible here) across the front lawn:
The family proceeded along the flowerbed at the top of the new wall at the driveway, where the chicks showed that their camouflage works really well against leaf mulch:
If they keep their heads down, that is:
The hen jumped off the wall and flapped down to the driveway, which is no big deal for such a large bird. It provoked a bit of discussion and hesitation among the chicks, who eventually followed her lead:
Except for the last and smallest chick, who walked along the wall until the poor thing ran out of wall. It finally showed that it can fly just as well as its siblings:
Admittedly, turkeys don’t fly all that well, but they get the job done; those chicks can fly up to a branch and snuggle under their mother’s wings, safe from the foxes.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
I like Birds…
I don’t care for walkin’ downtown
Crazy auto-car gonna mow me down
Look at all the people like cows in a herd
Well, I like… Birds
[Ed: Comes from there.]
cool lyrics, love to hear the song…
Ed, your link has another link to a ringtone scam, $9.99 a month YUK
Beware Secondary Link-ages LOL
From what I’ve read, lyrics sites are hotbeds for that sort of thing. On the Internet you’re never more than six clicks from scams and porn: always practice Safe Computing! [sigh]
“Daisies Through Concrete” is a lovely album in general, and that’s a particularly good song from it. It’s not always safe for work, but the sound is so pleasant you hardly even notice.
So did my original copy-post include a secret link to malware? I thought I’d sanitized it.
Nope, I added a note linking to the complete lyrics. As with nearly all such sites, though, if you clicky enough, you get stung…
Nice to see the chicks. I used to have a turkey that greeted me on my early morning jogs through a wooded road near my house. We now have coyotes and the other runners warned me that they don’t back off. There was also a bear that caused an automobile accident about a mile north of my house. The police had to shoot the bear.
The turkeys are much smarter, during hunting season, than the hunters. I see them along the parkway for miles, while the hunters are in the woods trying to find them.
The DEC deported a cub from the City of Poughkeepsie a while back, so they’re definitely moving back into the area. Folks report hearing coyotes howl in the night, too, right across the creek.
Eventually they’ll have to rethink the ban on hunting in the suburbs…