While driving on a rural road near home, I saw a number of crows creating a ruckus in a tall tree. Whenever I see crows carry on in that way I always think they might be after a hawk or owl.
Luckily, there was room to pull over and I heard the call of a great horned owl in addition to the frantic cawing of the crows.
Others think the reason is territorial and the crows just don't want to share their space...
When crows gang up on other birds the behavior is called "mobbing". One cannot say exactly why the crows mob other birds, a common thought is that it is a defensive act.
Several winters back we saw crows attacking a snowy owl in Pennsylvania...
Eventually the crows, or their victims, get tired and move on...
I was curious about the possibility of an owl nest being nearby because of the number large trees in the area. I returned the next morning and immediately spotted a great horned owl and owlet...
I will keep an eye on the nest, I hope to see the young one take its first flight.
While observing the owl nest I spotted movement on the ground. Usually when I see wild turkeys they look something like this...
You might imagine my surprise when I realized that I was seeing a turkey gobbler and he was close enough to attempt a photo...
I had a 150-600mm lens, plus a 1.4x tele-extender, on my camera and I was hoping that the turkeys would head my way. I was delighted to see another gobbler appear with the first...
We are smack-dab in the middle of the mating season so I made a couple of yelps to see if the gobblers were interested...
Their reaction was immediate and after a couple more yelps they started in my direction. I had not seen the hens until the whole group had closed the distance by about half...
When the birds got close to my location they became suspicious when they couldn't see the hen they expected. After a few minutes they began move away...
The gobblers continued to display for the unseen hen but were not going to let the real hens leave without them...
Thanks for visiting, be well, and come back soon.
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