Florida trails as seen from Jacksonville to Key West and from November to April inclusivePackard, Winthrop
History
Florida trails as seen from Jacksonville to Key West and from November to April inclusive
Packard, Winthrop
Florida -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Florida
All about among these islands are well beaten trails of other creatures
than alligators. The range cattle make some of them, but not all. In
some you may see the duplex-pointed hoof-marks of deer. Some are
scratched out by the hurrying claws of raccoons. In many, along the
grassy edges I found the wide, dignified print of that king of wild
birds, the wild turkey. Long and stealthily I prowled these trails
hoping to come upon this majestic bird when feeding and thus see him at
his work, but in this I was unsuccessful. The turkey feeds mainly in
early forenoon and late afternoon, not leaving his perch as a rule till
the sun is above the horizon, lurking among the bushes on high ground
during the heat of the day, filling his crop again before sundown and
flying heavily to his roost before dark. Just now his food is mainly
succulent new grass with which he fills his crop until it will hold no
more, fairly swelling him up in front like a pouter pigeon. There were a
gobbler and two or three hens near-by--how near we were not to suspect
until later; but we saw only the trail of these, not a feather of them
did we glimpse, follow their tracks as we might.
It was late in the afternoon and we were a mile and a half from camp
when we heard the first turkey voice. It was that of a lone gobbler and,
just by chance, we stopped knee-deep in the grassy lagoon on the margin
of an island which held his favorite roost, a limb of a big pine
standing among deciduous trees. To this, from the other side he came. No
doubt he had been picking grass on the other margin of the lagoon in
which we stood, now he was headed for home and calling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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