Winter visitors, wearing out their welcome

I swear, they wait in the woods and listen for the bird feeders to be filled up.  I don't like to think about how many dollars in black oil sunflower seeds are going down the collective gullet of this flock of turkeys; they're showing up three or four times a day, much to the dismay of our resident chickadees and nuthatches.

A couple of weeks ago, my tightwad side got the better of me and I decided to leave the feeders empty until the turkeys reached back into the dim, dark recesses of their pea-sized turkey brains and regained a passing familiarity with whatever mechanisms had enabled the species to survive for thousands of years before misguided, soft-hearted liberals started throwing tons of commercially cultivated seed at them.

That lasted about half a day.  The turkeys came and stood in the yard for three hours, heads and tails drooping, gazing forlornly at the empty feeders.

I know when I'm beat.

It's much better to keep the turkeys happy.  

These two are very happy.

"Mom, the turkeys are fighting!"

The remaining pictures in this series are CENSORED