A Measure of Trust.


One of the young Turkeys was on the deck, and I took a chance and opened the window, slowly. The youngster stopped now and then, keeping an eye on me, but kept on eating. I got the window all the way open, said hello and talked for a moment or two. Then I focused and took a photo – the shutter noise on Nikons is quite loud, and rather scary when doing rapid shooting. I got the hairy eyeball, then it was back to eating. Took a deep breath and commenced with the rapid fire. Outside of a look or two, the youngster stayed relaxed, and kept eating, trusting the strange, noisy creature to do no harm. I’m all manner excited. Click for full size.

trust1

trust2

trust3

trust4

trust5

© C. Ford.

Comments

  1. kestrel says

    Amazing photos. I love photos like this, as it helps me to imagine what it must have been like SO very long ago when dinosaurs roamed. Turkeys can actually get quite tame oddly enough; I wonder if dinosaurs would have been open to domestication? (Hey, what could possibly go wrong if you domesticated dinosaurs? :-) )

  2. jimb says

    Oohhh, those looks are awesome. Very cool that it tolerated the noise and kept on with what it was doing.

  3. says

    Kestrel:

    I wonder if dinosaurs would have been open to domestication?

    Like rq, I see too much raptor to even consider that one! Turkeys have phenomenal eyesight, and I got to see that in action today, watching the matriarch hunting some unfortunate critter, and while I watched her, I also watched a raptor in my head. The times you can clearly see the dinosaur, it makes you very grateful they aren’t bigger than you. :D

  4. Ice Swimmer says

    Wow. Both on clarity and the expressions. Also, the skill to talk the talk.

    The skin on the head doesn’t look that different from human skin (with some dark stubble).

    A beautiful bird.

  5. says

    Giliell:

    Maybe the domestication process actually worked the other way around as in “Look how well we trained that featherless bird! It keeps feeding us!”

    Yep!

  6. Crimson Clupeidae says

    I’ve been trying to do the same thing with a roadrunner that lives not far from my office….no luck getting closer than about 50 feet yet.

    There used to be one that hung around the community college here that would sit right on the edge of the table outside the tutoring center (where I worked). Literally 3 feet from me…he would turn his back to the sun, and lift his feathers to warm up. Did you know roadrunners were solar powered? ;)

Leave a Reply