[EBB Sightings] wild turkeys in Oakland backyards

Turkeys have been spreading slowly but surely throughout the East Bay, ever since John Harris' first report of a couple of birds on the Mills College campus, three years ago or so. They are handsome, behaviorally interesting, and invasive species, which outcompete lots of other native critters for acorn mast, bugs, worms, etc.; heck, I've even heard of turkeys eating morel muushrooms, one of the few mushroom eating birds that I know of! As far as their impacts on our local ecosystem, the turkeys are kinda like flying feral pigs!

They are too big for most local predators (mountain lions are an exception, and prob. bobcats and the lucky coyote, too), and pretty aggressive, too; they are physically intimidating and work in concert to drive off threats. They can fly just fine, but prefer to run and walk and just fly in bursts. The males are currently strutting their stuff all over N. CA; kinda like Thanksgiving in April! 

They have adapted quite well to our urban and suburban landscapes, but it is certainly disconcerting to see them striding down our city streets! Lots of individuals out and about, so odds are you aren't seeing the same single bird over and over, and they do tend towards flocks. Then again...unless you color mark them, hard to tell the individuals from their almost identical turkey brethren.

Enjoy them! There's not much else we can do about their growing presence.

Debbie Viess


--- On Sun, 4/19/09, David Couch  wrote:

> From: David Couch 
> Subject: [EBB Sightings] wild turkeys in Oakland backyards
> To: sightings at diabloaudubon.com
> Date: Sunday, April 19, 2009, 6:45 AM
> My friend and colleague lives on Macarthur Blvd between
> Lakeshore Ave and Park Blvd and she saw a turkey in her back
> yard last weekend. (Her back yard is above and south of the
> 580 freeway.) The turkey was going from house to house,
> hopping up on garages, etc. It had a visible breast tuft.
> 
> Then on Monday at work we saw another similar (well, quite
> likely the same) turkey in from the back of our office on
> Grand Ave; it was hanging out in the back yard of a small
> apartment house on Lagunitas Ave. There is a lot of
> underbrush between there and the section of Macarthur
> bordering 580, and it eventually headed into that cover.
> 
> I wonder if it is one of the turkeys that folks saw last
> fall near Lake Merritt and Perkins?
> And how does it get from place to place across all those
> busy roads?
> 
> -- David Couch
> Berkeley
> (I work in Oakland near the Grand Lake Theater)
> dhcouch at sonic.net
> 
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