Roosting turkeys

Not the clearest of photos. Hand held at dusk. The old CoolPix 950 has decent low light performance, hurrah!

Outside temperature about 3F (-16C) when I took this. A bit of wind. The colour and shake captures what I felt when I was standing there. I can't imagine what these birds feel like.

These birds are Meleagris gallopavo, the North American Wild Turkey. They are quite large - about 3 feet from beak to tail (90cm) and weigh in at 9 pounds (4kg). Seeing them fly up into these trees, maneuvering among all those branches is quite a sight. Their wingspan is about 4 feet (1.2m) - I can't believe they do it, but they obviously feel the work of getting up there is worth it. Local predators would be foxes and dogs.