Portrait of a Turkey

This is "bob" my tom. He is the sweeter of my two Toms. Just look at those eyes.  Ain't he handsome?

Didn't know they have hairy snoods now did ya?

Don't know what a snood is?

NO worries i didn't either till i got a couple turkeys to care for. The snood is the floppy thing you see above the beak like a nose, but they don't breathe from it. They have nares, just like chickens and parrots.

The best way i can explain the snoods purpose is mood. If they are in a happy no worry, nothing to bother them mood, the snood is all the way down. (also in horny mode too). And if they are somewhat happy, but a bit wary, yet still in a good mood, its half way up or is it halfway down? (like in photo above). If they are NOT happy and quite agitated and in flight mode, the snood is up and almost hidden from view and shrinks (ha). I never get shots like that. I have happy turkeys.

There are more than this one thing to identify mood. Like the colors that change on his face. See how its almost a bit blue? and the neck bright red? While still having hints of white and red? Sometimes his whole face is totally blue. Or his neck is pink not red. Those colors change and intensify with mood too.

You know Benjamin Franklin thought that this turkey, the native american turkey, should be our National bird. Not the Eagle. This native american is an Osceola btw.... he's a true florida native. And i'm happy to say he's happy living here at GoodnessGracious!



On the computer front:

Still playing around with photos and how they come into blogger. This one came thru using Scribefire. The blog below came in from using posterous. Sending photos via email to posterous and it posts for me. The major difference is the photo size. Posterous is easier. Scribefire brings in the photos much larger than if i just brought them in using blogger. Not sure why. But this is truly one photo you need to see big.

We'll be having alot of turkey photos this month!