An early outing before work yesterday at Flatrock Brook Nature Center in the unseasonably warm temperatures turned out to be well worth it. Flatrock Brook is in the the city of Englewood, New Jersey, just across the George Washington Bridge from New York City. It is a charming 150-acre nature preserve, surrounded on all sides by housing, and is heavily utilized by people seeking a wooded respite from endless rows of suburban style housing.

There is a flock of Wild Turkeys that strut around like they own the place and they might very well be right. After all, there is no hunting and while I watched the turkeys they routed a feral cat that dared come near the flock of twelve which consisted of two tom turkeys and ten hens. Never had I enjoyed such a prolonged and close encounter with a flock of Meleagris gallopavo before and I thought folks might like to see the resulting images of the tom turkeys.

Wild Turkeys were at one point extirpated from a large portion of their range and stayed that way for quite some time. (They were gone from New York State from the 1840s until around 1948 and in New Jersey from the mid-1800s until they were reintroduced in 1977.) They are now common and doing better than the rest of the game birds of the eastern United States. Keep an eye out for gobblers and enjoy their strutting show!

If you liked these images make sure to head on over to 10,000 Clicks, the 10,000 Birds photo-galleries page, and see our large and growing collection of galleries.

Written by Corey
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.