Turkey Hunting

Back in December of last year, we had to send in our spring turkey hunting application. This year, Mr. Johnson decided to choose the early second season which started on Monday of this week. Since he's retired now, he's been able to go out hunting each day, but Wednesday was the only day I had off work, so I spent the morning in the turkey blind. I heard several turkeys gobbling all around me, but apparently they weren't interested in these attractive decoys set up outside my blind.Because I've done enough turkey hunting to know that the birds don't always cooperate, I brought along a book and some knitting, so the morning definitely wasn't wasted!


The only live bird that came close to my blind was this American Robin.

Shortly before it was time to leave, I left the blind and took a little stroll. I spotted this little sparrow who really didn't want to be photographed, so I'm not sure of its identity.....maybe a Chipping Sparrow? (Thanks to Hap from New Hope who ID'd this bird as a Swamp Sparrow.)

When we were setting up the blinds last Sunday, I spent quite a bit of time sitting at the edge of this little pond (a vernal pool?) watching the turtles and listening to frogs. Because I know turtles like basking on logs in a pond, I found a big branch and dragged it into the pond for the turtles and sure enough, when I walked over there Wednesday morning, I saw 2 turtles dive off the log when they saw me approaching.

When I visited this pond on Sunday, I could see that there were at least 4 turtles in the water, so I decided to step back away from the edge of the pond to see if the turtles would show themselves again. After a few minutes, turtle heads began popping out of the water. The first one I saw with this small Painted Turtle. I think these were the turtles that had been basking on the log. They're really pretty, aren't they?

I saw this big turtle at the edge of the other side of the pond. If there are any turtle experts reading this post, can you ID this turtle? I don't have any turtle field guides at home (I think I need to get one though!) but when I googled "turtle ID" I was thinking this one looks an awful lot like a Smooth Softshell Turtle.

Here's another look. It was big! I'm guessing the turtle's shell was at least 10 inches long. I think Smooth Softshelled Turtles are kind of rare in Minnesota, so it would be really neat if that's what this is.

Here's that Painted Turtle again, thinking about crawling back up onto the log.....

And here's another big turtle head that surfaced. I never saw any parts of its shell, but got 2 different looks at its head and I'm thinking this is probably a Common Snapping Turtle.

Here's the other look at this turtle's head.

Anybody have any thoughts on this turtle ID? Is it possible to have these 3 different kinds of turtles living together in the same small pond? And once this pond dries up in the hot days of summer, where will these turtles go? There's a small river nearby, but I think turtles like ponds better, don't they?


We're turkey hunting at a new farm this year and they have beef and dairy cattle here, with the added bonus of lots of cute little calves. This guy's pretty handsome, don't you think?

"Dude, wait for me! I got really short legs!"

These 2 were sound asleep in the sun.

I managed to get a few pets across the fence before they woke up enough to run away. Their fur is soft as a puppy when they're little like this.

King of the Forest

In the fall, our white-tailed deer bucks with their beautiful antlers are the undisputed kings of the forest.

But in spring, the bucks have lost their antlers and a new king reigns supreme in the forests of southeastern Minnesota -- the Eastern Wild Turkey!

The colors in this photo haven't been edited--his head really was that blue!

We went on an early morning turkey scouting adventure today and arrived as this big tom was just waking up and gobbling his turkey head off before flying down from roost. After he landed on the ground, we spent close to 30 minutes watching him parade around in full strut, trying to attract a hen. I was wishing for one of those nice long lenses for my camera as this is the best I could photograph from about 200 yards away.

In Minnesota, the turkey hunting licenses are chosen on a lottery system. For shotgun hunting, there are 8 different 5-day seasons that you choose in December for the zone you want to hunt in. If you're lucky, you will get chosen for the season you pick, or if you don't get chosen, shotgun hunters then have the option to choose any leftover zones or seasons. We didn't get chosen for the shotgun season we applied for, but fortunately there is also a bowhunting option that doesn't depend on the lottery system. So this year, for the first time, we will be trying to get our turkeys in the bowhunting season which starts May 15th and lasts 10 days. There are several advantages of bowhunting the last 2 seasons: by the middle of May the weather should be pretty decent, we can hunt in any zone (so hopefully we'll be able to find a hunting spot closer to home), and that late in the season a lot of the hens are already sitting on eggs, so we might have a better chance of calling in a big tom to one of our hen decoys. Neither of us have ever shot a turkey with a bow and arrow before, so we're really looking forward to this. Mr. Johnson has been shooting at the turkey target since January and I pulled out my bow this morning to practice shooting for the first time since last November. It felt good to shoot that bow again and I did pretty good hitting the targets even after 4 months.


The picture below shows a flying turkey Mr. Johnson shot a few years ago. (He had it "stuffed" and it now hangs on one of our living room walls.) This should give you somewhat of an idea of what a turkey would look like when it's flying. I think the tail is probably flared out a little bit more than usual (for display purposes). The wingspan on this huge tom is about 5 feet and if I remember correctly, this guy weighed around 22 lbs (27 lbs! Mr. Johnson set me straight on this!).....a pretty huge bird!