Wild Turkeys in All Their Glory and Owl Flight

Got up early, 6:45 am, to head out and see what was possibly what in our usual haunt. Still chilly but pretty out.

Spotted Yellow Crowned Kinglets but Very difficult to photograph. Saw a Song Sparrow, a White Throated Sparrow, and tons of American Tree sparrows.

Fed the Blue Jays which we've not seen for a while.

We decided on our way out, to head to Lynde Shores. Lucky we made this choice because what we witnessed there was just amazing to get to see. As we walked up the Chickadee path, al of a sudden rounding a turn in the path I was confronted with a whole group of stampeding female turkeys, running head long right at me. Normally they are timid and running Away from us as we walk. I wondered what in hell could be scaring them. A few minutes later there was a second group coming around the turn - 4 male turkeys. All of a sudden the one male in front spread out his tail in a fan and began shaking it and they were gobbling and prancing around the females as the females, calmer now, scrounged for dropped bird seed. The boy turkeys heads were this brilliant shade of red and blue, with long pieces hanging over their beak, all puffed up feathers, and so on. It was freaky to watch them. They just sort of travelled the path, displaying in amongst the girl turkeys. Later on, near the exit, the fighting started. They were running at each other, the boys, and some jumped high in the air to try to avoid being rushed. They were a bit scary. They all calmed down after about 10 mins of that. Such a cool experience to have had!

Later on in the day, amazing sights continued with a trip to another area where the great horned owl family has been for a year or more now. While there, we discovered a few people gazing up at them so high up they are almost impossible to see well. They have had babies and the Mom had just finished feeding them before we got there but the male was visible on a higher branch than the nest. As we were just about to head home, suddenly he took off from that tree, flying over head and settling in another tree. What an amazing sight!

A couple other sightings were both cool and disgusting at the same time. We spotted all the deer in the field at the first area we visited in the morning. We also finally found out what we thought was a dead deer on a property in the area actually Is a deer carcass. Not sure the reason a property owner would leave a deer carcass out, nor how he got it, was extremely odd and quite gross.