With faces only a mother could love, young turkeys continue to visit our backyard regularly. As I’ve mentioned before, this has been going on since July. The only difference is that now the youngsters are alone instead of being shepherded through yards and across streets by watchful mothers.
Last week I hadn’t seen any turkeys in a few days, so I thought it was safe to put my platform feeder back out, but they must be spying on me.
Within hours, fourteen turkeys appeared and two of them hopped up on the platform at the same time. It’s not meant to hold that much weight, and birdseed is too expensive to feed 15-pound “backyard birds.”
Thanks to the pole system from Wild Birds Unlimited, it’s easy to swap out feeders. I quickly removed the large platform and replaced it with a small covered platform feeder, but that didn’t stop this beefy youngster from trying it out.
Knowing that winter groups of turkeys can number in the hundreds, I’m still hoping that once it gets cold, they’ll find someplace else to hang out for the winter.