Even Small Adventures Bring Excitement to Life. Here is One of Mine. What are Yours?
I hope you enjoy this video as much as I do. I live where wild turkeys are really rare. So to my shock about Thanksgiving time when my husband and I were hiking on Palomar Mountain we saw some wild turkeys.
At the end of the hike we decided to stop at Mom’s, an out of the way restaurant we love to eat at occasionally, after a long hike. She has a vegetarian menu with wonderful cookies. There next to the restrooms were 2 huge wild tom turkeys facing off. I couldn’t help it. I had to record it. They were too funny, but also pretty determined that I didn’t get too close.
Palomar Mountain is one of our favorite places to hike. It is about 6000 feet. There’s a variety trails and our hike is often around 6 miles. At the top of one of the trails we can see the ocean in the distance. We seldom run onto other hikers and enjoy visiting with the ranger and her volunteers. We see white tailed deer regularly and lots of birds. One time we saw a bobcat with her twin cubs and rarely, really rarely, we see wild turkeys on Palomar.
On one of our hikes we saw large tracks and thought the tracks were from a great blue heron that had come inland a little ways. We asked the ranger about the tracks and that was when we discovered that there were turkeys in the area. The other reason the Toms were so unusual was that being at Mom’s was one of the most populated places on the mountain that day. We are talking 30-40 people and their cars coming and going. So there you have it my adventure with tom turkeys.
Enjoy,
Dr. Karen Gless, Ph.D
PS: After you see the video you may want to learn about why Benjamin Franklin dubbed the wild Turkey as a Bird of Courage.
