Click hear to hear it hooting

Happy Thanksgiving to all the US owl fans here, and a big thank you to everyone around the world that visits here.

I’m thankful I’ve gotten the opportunity to learn new things about animals with you every day for the last few months. We’ve been able to teach each other so many things, both about the places we’re from, and places most of us will probably never see.

We’ve gotten closer to each other, no matter where we are physically, and hopefully we feel a closer bond with our fellow creatures we share this world with.

Also a huge thanks to all the animal rescue and rehab workers. They work around the clock, entirely reliant on donations, and it is a tough job. Only about 30% of animals that make it to a rescue will survive. It must take a big heart and an iron will to deal with that amount of loss in a daily basis.

    • anon6789@lemmy.worldOP
      6·
      1 year ago

      I looked it up, and it seems second to the bobcat, the GHO is the second most common predator of adult turkeys, but they seem to only be able to handle the female turkeys, not the full grown males, and they usually only claim the head. They will snatch them right out of the trees.

      GHO are truly top tier predators!

      • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        Well of course they kill turkeys, turkeys sleep in the owls’ trees.

          • anon6789@lemmy.worldOP
            6·
            1 year ago

            Turkeys sleep up in the trees, so the owl ate the turkey for stealing his spot to sleep.

            Sorry, I forget some if you may not have never seen a turkey! They’re so common I forget they’re North American only. 🦃

            The big one is the male.

            Attempts to introduce the wild turkey to Britain as a game bird in the 18th century were not successful.[56] George II is said to have had a flock of a few thousand in Richmond Park near London, but they were too easy for local poachers to destroy, and the fights with poachers became too dangerous for the gamekeepers. They were hunted with dogs and then shot out of trees where they took refuge. Several other populations, introduced or escaped, have survived for periods elsewhere in Britain and Ireland, but seem to have died out, perhaps from a combination of lack of winter feed and poaching.[57] Small populations, probably descended from farm as well as wild stock, in the Czech Republic and Germany have been more successful, and there are wild populations of some size following introductions in Hawaii and New Zealand.

            Per Wikipedia for Wild Turkey

            Per two large studies, the average weight of adult males is 7.6 kg (17 lb) and the average weight of adult females is 4.26 kg (9.4 lb).

            Per a Wikipedia for GHO

            Mean body weight is 1,608 g (3.545 lb) for females and 1,224 g (2.698 lb) for males.[23][24] Depending on subspecies, maximum weight can reach 2,503 g (5.518 lb).

            • pseudo@jlai.lu
              2·
              1 year ago

              I’ve saw turkey but they are not the most commun type of poultry. Also in my mind, poultry nest low, like chicken or duck. TIL

              • anon6789@lemmy.worldOP
                2·
                1 year ago

                I always forget turkey and grouse roost in trees too. I typically see then grazing for food. It’s a big surprise when you come upon one in the woods and it scares the hell out of you.

                • pseudo@jlai.luEnglish
                  2·
                  1 year ago

                  My woods don’t look like this ! I’m not sure if I should be relieved or disappointed.
                  I lack knowledge in the field of hen. I just learn what a grouse is. It looks like the child of a turkey and a guinea fowl.

                  • anon6789@lemmy.worldOP
                    2·
                    1 year ago

                    It’s funny, I’ve never actually gotten a good look at one, just been scared by them when one flys away when I walk by. I looked them up, and I’ve only ever thought of them like in the picture above, but it seems they puff up like this:

                    I do like the guinea fowl too!

          • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
            4·
            1 year ago

            It wasn’t much of a joke really, just shoehorning in the fact that turkeys sleep in trees lol. So do peacocks. I found out the latter one when I stayed at this hotel that had resident peacocks, in the morning half the cars had peacock poop on them.