The Brave

Yesterday we went for a drive in the hills above San Jose. We drove along the west edge of the Calaveras Reservoir -- which in its bucolic beauty you would not imagine to be close to our urban bubble -- and started down toward habitation.. The road had some twists and humps, and I spotted there on ahead....

I spotted something, a silhouette coming into view and then disappearing. I knew what it looked like, but since I doubted that's what it was I said nothing. Eydie wondered if it was a cow. As we got closer, I kept discounting what it seemed to be, but finally there was no denying that what we saw was....

A wild turkey in full display, wings down, tail feathers spread, neck back.

Then we saw why. His harem of a dozen hen turkeys had apparently wandered down the steep bank on the right side of the road to sample the grass up against the fence on the left side of the road. Our tom got (I guess) the idea that loitering so close to a country road was unwise, and he decided to "man up," challenging and (hopefully) discouraging what might come their way.

I suppose. He was certainly strutting and posturing. We stopped and got out the camera, the one with the dead batteries in it.

I put on our hazard blinkers, and we sat there for a while looking at the turkeys. Then a car approached from the opposite direction. It stopped, but perhaps its appearance was too much for the females. One by one they scampered back up the bank on the right, at which point the tom furled and left the road, last man out, no female turkey left behind.