What on earth!

I was struggling to get a fire going in the outdoor stove yesterday when I heard the oddest sound. It is noisy here on the hill with a constant backdrop of traffic sound from the Thruway and the trains, so I had to strain to pick it out among the din. It was a sort of purring, clacking sound, hard to describe, but something like a squeaky wooden carriage wheel in the far distance.

As I made my way back and forth from the house with various combustible materials, such as a few scraps of old pine that used to be a flower box and ever more recent newspapers I kept noticing the sound. However, because it was soft and the traffic in late afternoon is loud, I just couldn't find the source.


Then as I paused for a second on the back step, catching my breath (I have this really nasty cold), I spotted a furious whirl of movement out on the heifer hill.

Turkeys! I never did get them all counted, but there were a lot and they were just going crazy. Running back and forth, up and down, and around in circles all over one little section of the hill. They were like little old ladies at a fire sale rushing from table to table and clucking over bargains. Really, it was as if they had completely lost their minds.

There were at least ten adults, which seemed very disturbed by the goings on, like referees at an out of control soccer game. Perhaps twenty poults-of-the-season were indulging in a turkish frenzy. They chested up to one another like boys confronting each other on the playground. Then whoever felt taller would grab the other guy by the back of the neck and they would twirl in tumultuous circles, all the while purring and chuckling musically.


It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen in the great outdoors. They went on and on about whatever they were up to,mostly keeping a little circle, perhaps sixty feet in diameter, but sometimes spilling out across the hill, then always returning.


When I finally got the fire going at least an hour later, they were still at it. I suspect that the little family flocks of two or three hens and this year's young that keep to themselves all summer are combining into the gigantic flocks of a hundred or more that hang around here all winter. I am thinking maybe they were sorting out the pecking order and deciding who was going to be leading the cornfield onslaught and picking up the tastiest alfalfa seeds. Whatever they were up to, I just loved how musical their chick-to-chick battles seemed. Sibling rivalry sure doesn't sound like that here in the house.