Posted: 12/21/2007 6:42:56 PM EDT
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Turkey In The Cemetery So I’ve been working in Isle of Wight Co., VA this week cruising some fine timber on the Blackwater River floodplain. I’m done for the week and am heading back towards home. I’m on Rattlesnake Road (a county grade) traveling through a farming area. Wheat fields, bean fields, and woodlots abound. Up on a small rise, across from a farmstead is an old family cemetery surrounded by a huge wheat field. Well-kept, maybe 100 feet square, with some scattered ornamentals and dominated by a huge oak. The cemetery was bounded by a 3 foot chain-link fence to keep the critters out. Well, as I come up the road what do I see? A hen-bird running up and down along the fence! Inside the cemetery! I slow down to 15 mph or so, and that hen is agitated. Running from one corner to the other, trying to get out and get away from me! Finally, she realizes she’s got these flapping things attached to her chest and takes wing and flies over the fence. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it, but when a turkey gets to their preferred altitude (regardless of actual height above ground), they like to just sail away. This hen got to about 15 feet and decided she’d glide along the roadside field edge. I pick up some speed to stay with her, she’s about 75-100 feet ahead of me. Finally she begins her descent with intentions of landing in the road. Short final was about a 100 foot glide, mere inches above the ground. Awesome to watch her deploy that landing gear, transitioning from air to ground. She then decides the best way to avoid me is to just keep on running down that road. I’ve seen plenty of turkeys running down the road, and I know that you can get up pretty close to ‘em, in a car or on a 4-wheeler, as long as you don’t get too close. Then they’ll just run and run and run. Which is exactly what this bird did. She ran down the road, with me about 50 feet behind her, for the better part of a quarter mile. They seem to get tunnel vision and don’t even think about getting off the road. Finally, the young plantation on the right broke and she peeled off. Some of you might think this is the end of the story but hang on, there’s a little bit more. See, when she peeled off the road, she cut diagonally across a field. In the middle of this field was someone’s house and associated rural yard debris. Old hen-bird goes to dodging and weaving through the yard, past the blown out swimming pool, around the rusted swingset, by the ’49 Ford, and finally turns the corner of the house. She’s now free and in the open, with nothing on her mind but to run and run and run. As luck might have it, the road I was on was getting ready to “T” into the road she was running towards, across hillbilly’s front 40. I sped up to catch the corner, and all of a sudden she realizes “oh noes!!!1!! here he comes again!!!” As I gunned it to catch up she flushed again, flying over the road (50 feet in front of me) and finally escaping to the woods on the far side. This bird probably ran most a mile, full speed, in juts a few minutes. I'm sure that old hen thought she was pretty smart, getting in that cemetery to gobble down all those luscious acorns. Bet she never tries it again. |
