Flathead Spring Gobblers

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PeteE
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Flathead Spring Gobblers

Post by PeteE »

I made this video on 3-24 while parked on Birch Grove just east of the Whitefish River bridge. The SW end of the airport runway is <1mile due east. The mix of farm land along side the brushy river bottom makes for prime wildlife habitat for many animals, including these turkeys. I see them all year long but it's always more fun in the Spring when the gobblers strut and display. 8)

3 minutes 1080HD You may have to turn the volume up a little to hear the turkeys yelping and the gobbler's "gobble" :)


pete :wink:
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daveparker
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Re: Flathead Spring Gobblers

Post by daveparker »

Geeze Pete,

You should just come up tot he house and have a beer, they are running around all over the place this year, I have been seeing 20+ in the yard everyday for the last month!
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Re: Flathead Spring Gobblers

Post by PeteE »

I forgot you replied here Dave.
I may do that, maybe next spring.
If you get close enough to gobblers when they're strutting, sometimes you can hear that very low pitched "drumming/booming" sort of noise they make.
And hear them vibrating their wings as they drag them. Kind of fun to watch imo.
You and dpratt live in a nice area out there west of town. As said in the other thread. LOTs of wildlife out that way.

pete :wink:
"If you are not curious, you will learn nothing" -Goethe-

"When you're born in this world, you're given a ticket to the freak show.
And when you're born in America, you're given a front row seat."

George Carlin
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Re: Flathead Spring Gobblers

Post by PeteE »

Next Spring there might be a gobbler among these 7 "teenager" turkeys on the right, an ever alert hen on the far left. 8)
In the 2 1/2 minute video you'll see how the young turkeys chase grasshoppers :)
I love watching them spot a hopper and take off running after it.

~2:30 Turkeys


Not many grasshoppers escape their frenzied efforts.
Turkeys have excellent visual acuity combined with the ability to gather detail very rapidly.
They see in color and into the ultraviolet spectrum at ~400nm wavelength.

The video doesn't always show it, but one of the hens is always stretched up tall looking around(see pic below) as the young ones chase hoppers.
Very little activity or movement in this open type of landscape, very little will escape the notice of these hens.

And there are predators out here in this rather bucolic mix of farm and woodland between Whitefish and Kalispell.
Lions, coyotes, foxes, raccoons will all eat turkeys if they can catch them 8)

There are lots of turkey flocks between WF and Kalispell. Always fun to see them.

pete :wink:

Image
"If you are not curious, you will learn nothing" -Goethe-

"When you're born in this world, you're given a ticket to the freak show.
And when you're born in America, you're given a front row seat."

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Re: Flathead Spring Gobblers

Post by PeteE »

dpratt wrote:They are definitely fun to watch. I never saw any out by me, but then again I didn't arrive until the last week of April so perhaps a bit late. I only saw them on 93 once on my commute to work one morning, which was later May. Hopefully we'll see them next spring. I would think they would be all over Farm-to-Market.
I see flocks all along Whitefish Stage and Trumbull Creek road. They move around in their home ranges. This flock was on Conn Road where it makes a 90degree turn to the East.
I also see them over by the County Dump a lot off US93.
Schrade Road between US93 and Whitefish Stage is another dirt road I see them near. Saw a HUGE flock on Schrade road one fall...over 50 birds.

Right now they like these open stubble fields located near forest edges(for escape cover and roosting).
Grasshoppers are high in protein and are abundant this time of year.
Sometimes they fan out in a long line close together. Then they move across a field sort of "wing to wing".
You can bet very few hoppers escape the "sweep" they make across a field.

Farm to Market Road/Twin Bridges Road area should have turkeys. It's the same sort of habitat as over here by me.
I don't get out that way much anymore. I used to hunt over near where I think you live. 8)

cheers and out into the smokey AM to work for a while
pete :wink:
"If you are not curious, you will learn nothing" -Goethe-

"When you're born in this world, you're given a ticket to the freak show.
And when you're born in America, you're given a front row seat."

George Carlin
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