A Unique Find

In Vermont last weekend, I almost stumbled upon something I have never seen before, a Turkey hen laying on its eggs. I was going behind our woodpile near our clearing to use the outdoor men’s room when I happened to glance to my right and see a dark bird looking quite scared staring back at me. It took me a second, but I backed away slowly and in the process, the turkey decided to vacate its nest (Seen in picture above). As it awkwardly took flight, my dog Bernard heard the commotion and took chase, there was nothing I could do to stop him. In pursuit, he chased it down the steep hill to the stream and then up the other side, running perhaps a hundred yards are so before giving up, the turkey making its escape. About the same time the turkey took off, another ground dwelling bird about 5 feet away took off as well. I don’t know what the other bird was, I only know its kind had startled me in the past while hunting in the woods. It was about the size of a small kid’s soccer ball, brown, and fast. I didn’t see it till later, but it was also laying on its eggs. What are the chances that two different species of birds made their nests and laid eggs within 5-6 feet of each other? I personally have never see that before. I have definitely never seen turkey eggs before or for that matter a turkey laying on her nest.

Now here is where the interesting part comes in. The turkey never came back throughout the whole weekend, yet the other bird did. We kept checking to see if the turkey was laying back on her eggs to keep them warm, but it appeared she abandoned them. The smaller bird, however, kept on getting startled by us, yet kept on returning. The only difference on our end that I noticed was that Bernard chased the turkey and not the other bird. Outside of that, everything was originally the same. Both birds were originally startled in the same manner, both flew off, yet only one made it back. I wonder if there is some difference in the makeup of the birds, their dedication to their eggs, or if it really was just as simple as one was chased by a dog and one was not? I may never know, but if someone out there knows the answer, I would love to hear it!

So we left the eggs, not wanting to interfere in nature anymore than we already had. Between my children, a debate raged whether we should keep the eggs so they hatched or eat the eggs. I’ll let you guess who wanted to eat the eggs. But we did neither and left them there. In the end, there is always a chance that the turkey could have been startled by another animal or human and disappeared. By leaving the eggs, we left nature to do its thing, whether it was providing food for another animal like a fox or coyote, or perhaps the turkey did come back after left in hopes of keeping its eggs going. I can’t escape the thought that they eggs most likely perished due to lack of their mother’s warmth. That is the circle of life, though, not everything is destined to make it and survive. Yet, it was a nice little surprise to see it in the first place and now at least I know where there could be a potential nest on my property up there in the future. We will see. Enjoy your Sunday, I’ll be on a lake with 8 scouts preparing for a week long Maine trip in a few weeks. It’ll be chilly, but beautiful.