Thursday, January 24, 2008

As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly...

I love when one of my students sticks their head in my office and asks me a question about birds. This morning while the temps hovered right around -15 F one of them asked if turkeys would sit in trees. Most of what my students know about turkeys comes from the dinner table at Thanksgiving so this seemed a reasonable question. Sure enough, right out the back of my class area, 4 turkeys were perched in some poplars with at least a dozen more on the ground below the tree. Well given the chance, I went on and on about what excellent fliers turkeys are and how they are very different from their wild relatives, etc., etc.. I wasn't sure the kids were buying it until, as if on cue, all the birds started rising up into the air and headed down the hill behind our school. I couldn't have asked for a more teachable moment.

Having their full attention I continued on about how I had heard the first cardinal singing his spring song as I walked into school and how some of the spring migrants are already headed north and how there is an owl that looks like it's already on a nest but by that point all the kids had migrated back to their desks to attend to, what I'm sure they considered more important tasks....

2 comments:

thepowerguides said...

I must admit I did not realise Turkeys could fly for ages until I saw some perched in a tree I had only ever seen them crossing the road like foxes, deer etc. so was pretty suprised

Steve From
The Power Bird Watchers Guide

troutbirder said...

They can fly but not very high and not very far. Several years back I was sitting behind our basketball team bus driver as we sped through a cut on Fillmore County #1. One hand had left the steering wheel in a protective gesture at which time I saw a turkey flying across the road in front of us. We missed hitting it by no more that 2 inches!