Turkey Shoot
Bruce Yolton directed me to this Wild Turkey near Triplets Bridge on Sunday evening right after sunset. I took a number of shots with my flash and when the turkey finally flew up into a tree to roost for the night I went home. The next morning I went back to the place where I left the turkey the night before and he was still foraging in the enclosed area between Balcony Bridge and Triplets Bridge. I took the shot on the left Monday morning.When I got home and looked at all my photos I realized that the turkey looked like all the other turkeys I had photographed. There was nothing to identify this turkey as a Central Park Turkey!
I decided to give myself the assignment of shooting the turkey so that you could see it was in Central Park. I went out after the turkey the next day but I only took a wide angle zoom (Canon 28-70 f/2.8) and my 400 f/5.6. I was also meeting John Moody from CentralParkTV.com. He wanted to interview me for his Web site and videotape me while I worked. We met at 7 am at the 77th Street entrance to the park.
We went over to the area where the I left the turkey the day before but he was gone. I called Regina Alvarez to see if Parks had spirited the turkey away but she said they hadn't touched it. While I was talking to her one of her gardeners radioed he had just seen it on the east side of the park south of 72nd St.
John and I hurried over and after looking around for a while we finally spotted the turkey in a tree on the east side of the mall. Around 9:20 am he flew down from the tree and proceed to make his way north crossing the 72nd Street transverse and wandering up Cherry Hill before flying across the lake next to Bow Bridge and disappearing into the Ramble.
As he foraged on Cherry Hill he got pretty close to a couple lying on a blanket intertwined in a passionate embrace. He hardly noticed them and they were certainly not interested in a Wild Turkey.
I quit shooting after the turkey flew across the lake and into the Ramble because the Ramble is "Forever Wild" and looks just like typical turkey habitat.
Turkey photos from Tuesday start here.
