Turkeys on the ski trails

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DrewKnight

DrewKnight

Active member
Joined
Jul 10, 2005
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Location
Waterville Valley, NH
No, I'm not making some kind of social commentary on my fellow skiers and snowboarders... just reporting the rather astounding sight of ten robust-looking turkeys browsing their way across the not-yet-very-snowy Exhibition Terrain Park at Waterville Valley around 11am this morning. The big birds were scratching in the tall grass and thin dusting of snow, maybe one hundred feet from the quad chair, ignoring the hundreds of people riding by, the roaring of the snowmaking guns, the commotion of the snowmobiles, etc.

I guess they figured they survived Thanksgiving, so no harm was going to come to them today. Aren't these guys supposed to be somewhat shy and reclusive?
 
DrewKnight said:
No, I'm not making some kind of social commentary on my fellow skiers and snowboarders... just reporting the rather astounding sight of ten robust-looking turkeys browsing their way across the not-yet-very-snowy Exhibition Terrain Park at Waterville Valley around 11am this morning. The big birds were scratching in the tall grass and thin dusting of snow, maybe one hundred feet from the quad chair, ignoring the hundreds of people riding by, the roaring of the snowmaking guns, the commotion of the snowmobiles, etc.

I guess they figured they survived Thanksgiving, so no harm was going to come to them today. Aren't these guys supposed to be somewhat shy and reclusive?
Click to expand...

I see these guys all over the place. I have had to stop my car on paved roads to let them go by. I also hardly ever see one by itself...usually six to twelve at a time. I think they were probably getting stoked for Winter. I hear they can pull one heck of a RODEO in the pipe :D !
 
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DrewKnight said:
I guess they figured they survived Thanksgiving, so no harm was going to come to them today. Aren't these guys supposed to be somewhat shy and reclusive?
Click to expand...

For a while there was a flock of them that would mosey out into the grassy part of the Manchester traffic circle near Lake Massabesic. Darn things would create such havoc with the traffic.

And not to mention the numbers of them I have seen feeding 25 feet from the paved section of I-93 in which cars were roaring by at anywheres from 60-80 MPH.....and were totaly unphased!

Brian
 
I can remember pulling into my house maybe ten, twelve years ago and seeing some very odd creatures out on the field that I'd never seen before. They were wild turkeys, and it seemed like they virtually appeared in the North Country out of nowhere. Now, like skiguy, I see them all over the place, usually in flocks crossing the road. They seem to be slow and gawky fliers, but I have yet to see a turkey roadkill carcass.
 
I occasionally see wild turkey roadkill in CT & there was a motorcycle fatality in NH several years ago between Concord & Keene on Route 9.

They are n't very shy anymore. I see several every week, either in my home town, on Route 2 or on the Merritt which also has a lot of deer too.

Not many hunters in Fairfield County
 
I've often seen flocks as well... both in the Whites and in southern New England.

I don't think they are particularly shy either... there is a flock that lives near a local high school that definitely isn't shy. We hear calls every once in a while on the police scanner about marauding turkeys that are chasing students away from their cars in the parking lot.

The woods behind the school have recently been developed with housing... I like to think of it as the turkeys fighting back. ;)

- Ivy
 
Waumbek said:
They seem to be slow and gawky fliers, but I have yet to see a turkey roadkill carcass.
Click to expand...

I have. One flew kamikaze-style into my car, bounced off the hood (leaving a sizable dent), then off the windshield (thankfully no dent), and ricocheted dead into the ditch. I had had that happen with partridge before, but that was the first I'd know that turkeys had the kamikaze thing going too.
 
Turkeys

I think it's less about them not being shy and more about them not being very bright.

There is one, yes one, that hangs out at our little shopping plaza in Kingston. She owns the place. Like others here, we see many in the north country and at home near the seacoast.

As far as road kill goes, it wouldn't lie around long before a fox or coyote snatched it up.

KDT
 
Unlike the WKRP in Cincinnatti "turkeys can't fly" myth, I have seen wild turkeys fly 30' in the air (albeit, quite ungracefully). Though I am not sure about the flying capability of the domestic turkeys raised for produce, I'm fairly certain their feet never leave the ground... :eek:
 
One of the most comical sights in the wild has got to be Turkeys roosting in trees, especially on bendy branches.

Almost as funny as watching Great Blue Herons trying to land in the canopy of hardwood trees.
 
The great "Turkey Drop"

Frodo said:
Unlike the WKRP in Cincinnatti "turkeys can't fly" myth, I have seen wild turkeys fly 30' in the air (albeit, quite ungracefully). Though I am not sure about the flying capability of the domestic turkeys raised for produce, I'm fairly certain their feet never leave the ground... :eek:
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I can still hear Les Nessmann:

"They're dropping like sacks of potatoes (cement ???), oh, the humanity...."
 
Two years ago in October I hiked up Tecumseh and skied down the ski trails and saw a flock in almost the exact same area as you describe.

Waterville Turkeys

Maybe they're related to the group you saw.
 
They do look familiar!

Same bat time, same bat channel -- about the same amount of snow on the ground, etc. I wonder if they're out harvesting the last of some kind of seeds or berrys in the long grasses on the trails?

One thing we noticed both times we saw them, they were stretched out in a nearly-perfect line length-wise up the trail. For turkeys, the seemed awfully regimented.
 
Every year early in the ski season the turkeys are on the hill-- This year they seem very big. Maybe the mild winter last year contributed to that. This morning riding up the lift at Waterville they were still grazing on the ungroomed trails. Has anyone ever seen a turkey nest in the trees at Waterville? Let me know where --I'm anxious to see that.
Skibones
 
Never seen one roosting...

I spend a lot of time on the trails around WV and I have never seen one roosting -- only browsing, and then most often along Rt 49, which was absolutely rotten with turkey families all late-summer and fall. Then again, I have the bad tendency to watch the ground in front of me while hiking and mountain biking, so they could be hovering right over my head any given day.
 
"It's a helicopter, and it's coming this way. It's flying something behind it, I can't quite make it out, it's a large banner and it says, uh - Happy... Thaaaaanksss... giving! ... From ... W ... K ... R... P!! No parachutes yet. Can't be skydivers... I can't tell just yet what they are, but - Oh my God, Johnny, they're turkeys!! Johnny, can you get this? Oh, they're plunging to the earth right in front of our eyes! One just went through the windshield of a parked car! Oh, the humanity! The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement! Not since the Hindenberg tragedy has there been anything like this!"
Click to expand...
........ :eek:
 
There is a group of 6 or 7 turkeys that live in the woods around my neighborhood. They are often see running across the street as a group.

Recently, we were having work done in the backyard and all the banging didn't keep them from walking across the backyard. We were suprised how bold they were.

Other turkey story, was driving down 495 and a turkey walked in front of me in the left lane. He flew up quickly - we stared eye to eye for a second, and just managed to scrape over the top of my roof. If i was in my 4 Runner, I would have had to use my wipers to get him off the windshield.
 
Turkeys on the trails, redux...

I had a skiing "first" on Saturday morning when I was coming down Baseway at Waterville Valley at about 8:30am and I had to swerve to avoid two turkeys in the middle of a groomed trail... no doubt part of the same colony we talked about earlier.

I gave the head of lift operations a hard time about his "turkey infestation problem" and he just shook his head. He said he brought his dog up thinking the dog might chase them away, and the dog ended up hanging around with the birds instead.
 
DrewKnight said:
I had a skiing "first" on Saturday morning when I was coming down Baseway at Waterville Valley at about 8:30am and I had to swerve to avoid two turkeys in the middle of a groomed trail... no doubt part of the same colony we talked about earlier.

I gave the head of lift operations a hard time about his "turkey infestation problem" and he just shook his head. He said he brought his dog up thinking the dog might chase them away, and the dog ended up hanging around with the birds instead.
Click to expand...

Next time don't swerve...sounds like free Cristmas Dinner :D !
 
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