Meet the Neighbors

A few days ago, we had a pair of does and their fawns frolicking in the side yard. The fawns still had spots, and were half grazing like grown-up deer and half chasing each other about. Deer are neat.

Yesterday, there was a turkey by the pond. No, two turkeys, the other up in the side yard. And one, no, two, no, three half-grown youngsters. A family out for a stroll, I thought -- and then we saw a smaller turklet.* And then another, and another; half a dozen or so, by the time they all hopped into view. So, two families, one with turklets a bit younger than the others. The little ones had to detour around a fallen log because they couldn't climb over it, and went scurrying after the larger ones as though their older cousins were too cool to let out of sight for long. They wandered off into the woods after a while, the smallest ones intermittently visible and otherwise trackable by the wiggling of the tall grass.

*Baby turkeys are not in fact called turklets, but they should be.