Digital
Turkeys—You Only Get
One Photograph!
By Ed Keenan, Author of Nature
and the Southwest
You only
get one photo of a tom turkey—maybe two. From chicks to
jakes to old toms, they are cagier than an early Native
American, more sly and cunning than a bobcat, more aware and
alert than a coyote… that’s how they stay alive. So, for a
birder to see a wild turkey up close and personal it doesn’t
happen easily.
To me,
some of the most interesting birding stories are always
about turkeys. The art of getting to observe big game,
including desert Javelina are particularly interesting, but
the birding experience of observing a wild turkey is always
of special interest to me because of their natural wildness
and innate smarts. That’s what makes each, turkey-birding
experience so memorable. It pits the wits of the birder
against the birdbrain of a turkey, and a birder often loses,
no matter how good he/she is. So clearly there is a
difference between IQ and turkey smarts. I’ve known
men/women with high IQ’s that were not very smart. As in
other things in life, all it takes is one tom turkey to
prove the point— even an immature jake can do it.
So, I
decide to go on a spring turkey safari with my digital
camera—a pure form of birding—for the pure pleasure of
photographing a wild turkey. The preparation leading up to a
photo or two cannot be overemphasized. It starts with the
expectation of the unexpected, the anticipation of the
unanticipated. The birding for a wild turkey is all about
the joy of preparing the mind to think like a wily tom
turkey. For camera-hunters who want the ultimate challenge,
photographing a turkey can test your skill, patience and
accuracy. Bringing home the right shot of a turkey with a
camera is a whole lot more satisfying than just getting a
glimpse of one in the woods.
My saga
begins with scouting the woods in the Santa Rita Mountains
of southeastern Arizona for a good set up location. Having
some knowledge of turkey behavior is helpful. Such things as
learning where they roost can be invaluable. Water sources,
foraging and strutting areas, if they can be determined, may
give an idea of their habits. Openings and small meadows in
the woods, ridgelines and canyons that serve as travel and
escape routes all help the photographer to determine a good
location for his set up.
Also, the
direction of the sun and areas of shadow are vitally
important to a proper set up. Keeping the sun’s glare in a
turkey’s eyes and making him look into the shadows means
keeping the sun and a tree trunk at your back, and
preferably the shadows in front of you. Mind you, a wise old
tom will be using the very same scheme of light and shadows
to try to get your picture! So carefully setting up in the
right location before calling in a tom turkey is one key to
success. Having a second and third set up option improves
the possibility of success. What if he responds with a loud
gobble to your first call from your backside? You have to be
prepared for a quick move to the other side of the tree
Because
wild turkeys are extremely alert to changes in their
environment, they are quick to notice any sort of movement
or reflections. They have peerless eyesight and hearing and
instant escape reflexes. Hunting with a shiny camera lens is
a liability in this regard, because the lens can easily
cause unwanted reflections to be noticed by the tom turkey.
Taking
special care to remain undetected in their habitat leads to
the issue of camouflage. Those seeking to observe a turkey
in the wild use full camouflage regalia, from face paint and
gloves to boots and caps…they even camouflage their cameras.
No shiny spots or cowboy buckles or gold teeth showing—not
even the white of the eyeballs! Face netting is absolutely
essential because to a turkey a persons face glows in the
dark. So, most of the time, remaining motionless is probably
the best camouflage.
Even after
such careful preparation, how do I get this wary bird to
come up close enough to get a decent digital shot? That’s
where the turkey call comes in. There are different kinds of
turkey calls made for that purpose. Other than the mimicry
of the human voice, maybe the most primitive of man-made
turkey calls is the simple box call. It is a small
hand-held, coffin-shaped box, about 7’’ L x 2” W x 1 ½” H.
The box has an arced paddle attached to the top, that when
dragged or rubbed across the top edges of the sides, creates
a chafing squawk-screech or yelp sound, that can manipulated
to mimic a clucking hen.
I have had
a very old box call setting on a shelf in my den for years.
It was hand made by an Arkansas turkey caller, probably back
in the forties, and given to me as a souvenir. Its age means
that the wood is well seasoned, so it should give off a
realistic guttural tone that no amorous tom turkey could
resist.
Up to this
day, many turkey callers still use the “squawk box” for its
ease of use, versatility and sound quality. Experienced
callers also use them for the high volume they easily
produce. Box calls are made from various woods and are not
hard to assemble. There is a great satisfaction in
practicing with one of your own making. It adds a lot of joy
and feeling of accomplishment on the day you call in your
first wild turkey. Chalking the paddle and top edges of the
box adds to the effectiveness of producing the sounds of
turkey talk.
As
mentioned, a stroking or scraping from either side produces
a chafing-squawk or yelp sound. By using different hardwoods
on each of the box sides, the tones can vary from lower to
higher, and thus mimic the various hen sounds of wild
turkeys. Different woods create different pitches. Cedar and
cherry, the most commonly used woods, give a higher pitched
and sweeter tone like a young hen. Walnut yields a deeper,
courser tone like a gobbler or an older hen, and the wood of
a poplar tree delivers a characteristic low nasal yawlp or
yelp.
So, in
your head here is what happens. Any turkey call you practice
on triggers the mind to be in the middle of the woods. Each
time you make some trial sounds with your box-call, you can
hear that gobbler in the distance. While you are shaping the
wood, in your imagination you hear and see the tom turkey
coming in closer. Thus, you will call in a lot of turkeys in
your head when you are making a box call. Clucks and hen
yawlps on a squawk box are some of the most genuine,
rivaling the cluck of any hen. Sometimes, just one or two a
good yelping-clucks is all it takes to make a tom turkey
stretch his neck gobble loudly!
Big tom
gobblers are most often heard an hour before sun up to an
hour after. However, I get a late start. But it may not make
much difference. After all, turkeys don’t disappear at
sunrise they just scatter out in the woods. So about 8:30 or
9:00 AM, I take up my position and plant myself in front of
a big oak tree, hoping my location will give me a good photo
shot. My camouflage is one large piece of woodland-camo
netting draped over my extra-wide brim straw hat that I have
sprayed stove black. Draping it over my wide brim gives me
camera room. The rest of the netting covers my entire dark
clothing. I have a hole cut in the see-thru netting to stick
my camera lens through. It too is flat black. Getting
comfortable, I’m basically facing west-southwest, with the
sun at my back. I have made sure that not too many
obstructions are between me and the target area that I hope
to shoot in.
About
twenty yards directly in front of me is a brushy clearing, a
small meadow with short grasses. It is my opinion that open
clearings always attract birds. The woodland border that
surrounds the small clearing is a forest of mixed oak,
juniper and pines. To my left about ten o’clock is a rocky
hillock. The knoll extends toward the canyon ridge that runs
east and west about twenty yards directly off to my left.
I’m thinking I might be able to call out a tom, either from
the woods in front of me or from over the canyon edge to my
left.
The reason
for the twenty-yard perimeter view is because I only have a
300mm lens. That’s about the effective limit or range of
such a lens. In fact I’ll need to coax a turkey up a little
closer to get a descent size photo image. Obviously, I could
do with a 400 mm lens. Maybe later.
So, now it
comes down to turkey smarts— IQ versus birdbrain. I decide
to sit quietly for at least thirty minutes or longer. This
is to allow time for the ripples of my presence in the woods
to dissipate; to cause a natural sense that I am no longer
in the area. So I sit and observe the small birds with my
binoculars and read their behavior. Titmice and chickadees
are the sentinels of the woods and so when they are calm and
actively feeding around me, I know that I am no longer
affecting their natural behavior. A gray squirrel shows up
overhead and gently leaps from limb to limb, out to the tip
of an oak twig and deftly works his way on to a limber pine
twig and up the limb. A white-breasted nuthatch comes
headfirst, down a tree trunk, right next to me. So, I feel
comfortable that the time is right for my first call on the
old “squawk box.”
Making a
yelp-cluck sound that could attract a tom turkey is a matter
of touch and stroke with the paddle across the edges of the
call box. It is also subjective; a matter of how one
perceives the clucking yelp and yawlp sound of a hen turkey.
I am not an experienced pro, but I’ll give it my best shot.
First a soft yelp-yelp and then a painfully pregnant
pause—at least 10 minutes. Then I give him a louder, more
urgent, yelp-yawlp. Instantly! Off to my right in the woods,
about two o’clock, comes’ an intense gobble-gobble, maybe a
hundred yards away. Stirred with excitement, my heart
quickens. Though one might even wait 15 to 30 minutes, but I
test myself by waiting only five minutes before testing him
with my squawk box again. I figure he will be anxiously
heading toward her (me). So, with a lighter touch, I do a
softer yelp or two, softer because I am guessing he is in a
little closer. It’s a guessing game. Bingo!
Gobble-gobble-gobble! But this time he sounds like, not one
but possibly two gobblers. Maybe jakes (young males) since
they tend run together.
And, this
time the tom’s answer comes from center-left about eleven
o’clock. Surprisingly he is much closer, maybe at the edge
of the woods near the opening. A tom turkey can accurately
pinpoint the sound of a hen from a long distance. Given this
second opportunity to hear her, his response tells me that
he has triangulated between my first and second series of
clucks, and now he positively knows within inches just where
her sound is coming from. However, if he doesn’t see her, he
will move cautiously in her direction, and may detour around
the spot seeking to catch a glimpse of her. Anticipating his
movement, I slowly and carefully scootch my butt and body
around slightly to the left to be in a better position…no
quick movements. The anxious minutes pass, for nearly a half
an hour I practically quit breathing…and no appearance of a
tom turkey in any of the openings I had in view. But, it is
time for patience; no more calls on my old box call. This is
the critical moment—birdbrain versus IQ—the first one to
move, flinch or blink loses!
And then
ever so slowly, just off to my left, stretching his neck and
cocking his head this sly tom comes sneaking out from behind
the mound along the ridge of the canyon, he peers between
the trees. Sporting a long beard, he is well inside my
predetermined twenty-yard marker! But he stays mostly in the
shadows and keeps a low profile with his head down. Then he
pauses and raises his head for about four seconds and looks
directly at my position with a cock-eyed curious look. It
was just long enough to get off a couple of shots before he
quickly left the scene toward the canyon. He obviously heard
the click of the camera. What a really great feeling I had
for being able to call in this tom turkey, even though I
couldn’t get a well-lit digital photo.
Though he
got spooked at the sound of the camera click and
disappeared, I decide to stay put for a few minutes to see
if any other birds follow. And, just as I am savoring the
moment and thinking, “wow! that’s it,” suddenly, there
appears another handsome turkey…a jake! He poses in partial
sunlight well inside the ridge overlooking the canyon. This
gobbler raised his baldhead, and showed me his red, white
and blue crown and red wattles, and then curiously stared
toward my position in the shade. Click!! I got off a clean
shot before he vanished over the ridge! He must have been
the one that chimed in with a double gobble that I heard on
the second call. I thought it was unusual to find this jake
following so close to the tom, since the dominant tom
generally runs off the young jakes. The whitish-tip of the
tail feathers, identify these turkeys as the southwestern
species. Eastern birds have reddish-brown tail tips.
The
feeling of satisfaction was overwhelming! The few pictures
that I got tell the whole exhilarating story of my old call
box and the results of human IQ versus turkey smarts! I’m
thinking that my unusual birding experience is deserving of
uncorking that rare single malt libation and a little
embellishment around the fire. What an awesome feeling of,
not just getting to see these beautiful gobblers up close
and personal, but getting a digital photo of them! Yes!
Digital Turkeys—you only get one photo—sometimes two.
Ed Keenan © 5-08
COW CHIP/COWBOY POETRY: For a poem,
click here.
Cow Chip Poetry - Lies, Lingo and Lore by Southwest Cowboy Poet, Ed Keenan. This
is an entertaining collection of cowboy poetry with an extensive 'Glossary of
Cowboy Lingo'. Great gift - perfect for trail rides, cookouts, campouts. Contact
Arroyo Press, (888) 784-8282, PO Box 1028, Vista CA, 92085.
www.SouthwestBlend.com/cowchippoetry
Resource
Guide