OT - But Don't See That Much Around Here

Had to stop the truck in a small subdivision for them "buzzards" here in central Illinois.
Never seen this many together before - Glad I had my camera.
PS: Not Decoys!

That's a small flock compared to what we sometimes see here in western Illinois

Sure dont look like our buzzards....

300:
East Peoria, had to wait for them to cross the street! - Overlooking the Illinois River.

Peoria here - Where you at in western Illinois?

Jim

Just starting to see a few around here in N Md., not real big flocks, but more numerous each year.

well then come up to central WI.[Fremont] and you can have 300 of the d-- things. have 300+ on the field every day my swamp is a winter grounds for them lots of tall pines. so bring your truck and haul them away

I often see flocks of wild turkey here in northern Pa. that resemble that flock. I counted 42 in my dooryard one morning back in October.

We have a lot of them around here. They eat a lot of bugs in the garden and don't seem to bother my flowers. I tried one = They ain't mech good eating = Tuff!!! lol

I have counted as many as eighty seven in one big flock here in northern Mi. It has been about ten years ago though. I don't know if they are doing as well right here as they were as less farmers round here are feeding them in the Winter time.
It seems as though there are more kinds of wildlife around now then there was when I was a child. We now have Opossum, Bald Eagle,Turkey, Cougar, and a few Wolves around here, none of which were found in these parts thirty years ago.

Located in southern Wisconsin....took these photos from my picture window this morning.....counted 62. They roost in the woods and come up to the yard about 8:30 A.M.

we have a flock of about a dozen that make their rounds through our place just about every morning.

Jim you have to get out more!!! If you go west of me a few miles they are everywhere. Groups of 25-50 are common. They like to eat young corn and soybeans plants of course!
bill

Used to see lots of em like that in the yard here all the time, then the coyotes moved in, now hardly ever see a turkey, hear one once in a great while, but thats it.

Lots of them around here. Starting about 20 years ago with some transplanted turkeys they have done well. I think they have withstood our other problem(coyotes) much better than our pheasant population.

I was driving in Gratiot County Mi a few years ago. Counted over 100 deer on one side of the road and well over 100 turkeys on the other side.

Bill, if you say you have seen them eating small plants, I have no reason to doubt you. All I can say is that it is very common to see flocks of turkeys in our fields here in eastern Va, and I've never seen any crop damage. They will definitely clean up any grain laying on the ground, and are death on insects. About 25 years ago we were spraying beans for corn earworms, and the sprayer broke down late Saturday afternoon, with 16 acres left to go. Sunday afternoon, a flock of about 20 moved into the field and really went to town on those worms! Monday morning we could not find a worm anywhere. Never did spray that field that year! Maybe your birds out there are a different species than ours. Like I said, I've never seen them do what you say, but Illinois is a long way from Va., and I sure don't claim to know everything!

They look like turkeys rather than buzzards to me. We have had 20+ wild turkeys in our yard at one time on several occassions.

Harold H

All species of wild turkeys eat a combination of mast (hard and soft fruit from woody plants), green forage, seeds, agricultural crops, and animal matter.

The wild turkey’s main source of food, by far, is plant material -- as much as 95% of the turkey’s diet may come from plants. The most common foods throughout the year are grasses, herbaceous green leaves, and seeds. In fall and winter, acorns, fruits, and berries become very important. They may feed on certain types of roots and tubers. And, in some parts of the country, agricultural crops, such as corn, wheat, and fruit, play a crucial role in supporting local wild turkey populations.

Insects are a smaller, but important, component of the wild turkey’s diet. Depending on the area and the time of year, they may eat grasshoppers, dragonflies, snails, beetles, or salamanders. During their first four weeks of life, young wild turkeys (called “poults”) consume high amount of insects in order to get much needed protein.

Wild turkeys almost always feed on the ground, and only on rare occasions will they feed while roosted in trees. During the spring, they feed in the top layer of vegetation, picking at herbaceous plants and stripping food from larger plants. In the fall, they tend to do a lot more scratching, searching for acorns or tubers beneath the surface layer.

Turkeys are constantly on the move while feeding, and tend to stay in groups while they eat. While they may feed during any part of the day, there are two distinct heavy feeding periods: two to three hours after leaving the roost in the morning, and two to three hours before sunset.

Wild turkeys have some of the longest intestines of all birds, allowing them to extract nutritional value from even extremely coarse vegetation. Food is ingested through the esophagus and stored temporarily in an expandable organ called the crop. It then continues into the gizzard, an impressively strong organ that crushes and grinds the food into a digestable pulp. Typically, only tiny, hard seeds make it through the gizzard intact.

Bills right, they walk right down the row eating them.