Saturday, April 12, 2014

Mangle

I spent a good part of yesterday spring cleaning our back patio. I needed to clean off scattered seed, perches, backgrounds and some assorted junk. While I was working I heard two Wild Turkeys calling back and forth over the ridge. When one of them got closer it dawned on me that a good opportunity was at hand. I grabbed my camera and ran out to my permanent photoblind in the front yard. Before I could climb in I noticed one of the jakes was right across the driveway from me. Catching my motion it scurried off into the trees. I climbed into the blind and started giving soft hen turkey clucks. (Hard to imagine me as a hen turkey isn't it!) The other jake answered with a couple of gobbles and came running up the ridge less than a minute later. This caused the other jake to come back which pleased me to no end because it was quite a bit bigger. It was looking for that jenny it had heard. It hung around for quite awhile giving me plenty of opportunities to photograph it. The lighting was a bit iffy but I still had a great time. The poor jake never did find his girl. I decided to call him "Mangles" because half of his tail feather were mangled, torn up and missing. God's light and love to all, chris Camera Equipment Used- Canon 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM Lens Camera braced to blind frame hand held. Camera Settings- AV mode, ISO 400,F stop F5.6,Shutter speed varied

2 comments:

  1. Incredible, never seen such a turkey, really long exposure.

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  2. Thank you for stopping in for a look madeinchinawigs. Wild turkeys are pretty common here. They aren't a native species. they were introduced to the area where I live in Northern California in the U.S. and now they are seen quite often.

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