At 3,200 feet, Dan and I are a little high for the species. Skiing above the house recently, we followed the tracks of three turkeys then spooked four roosting high in a pine. At his Penn Valley workshop last spring, Dan was regularly visited by three moms with a combined brood of 22. Any hunter will tell you that wild turkeys are strong fliers for short distances, exceedingly wary and difficult to catch. Domestic turkeys are legendarily stupid, but I can't imagine Tom's progeny looking up at rain and drowning, as feed lot turkeys supposedly do.
Turkeys have a highly developed social system and forage cooperatively to better elude predators.
When Tom showed up alone recently, we worried that his missus had been killed. But we learned that after they mate, toms become solitary. They look grotesque to us but drive Thomasinas wild with desire. I've only seen a tom once in the fully spread tail display like schoolkids draw at Thanksgiving. Under a Duggans Road feeder, he shook his feathers and turned to and fro to catch the best sun angle on his colors to convince three hens to mate.