At 6:50 this morning I shot Gobbler #15 (in my lifetime). It was a beautiful morning. The temperature started at 53 degrees. The sun came up nice and bright. An old gobbler started calling about 5:45. Just after 6:00 a hen flew into the small valley field in front of me, followed by four more hens in a few minutes. Then four gobblers walked into the field. Only the two biggest toms strutted and gobbled. The other two males had nice beards, but they acted quite subservient.
A fence divided the small valley field in half and all the turkeys were on the opposite side of the fence from me and my two decoys. When I called, all four gobblers looked over my way, but none came across the fence.
At about 6:40 the two bigger gobblers and two hens went north and the two smaller males and three hens went south. The last young gobbler stopped at the fence and stared at my decoys for several minutes. After a few steps he turned back, ducked under the fence and came right to me. I shot him at 35 steps. Although he had a 10-inch beard, he only weighed 15 lbs.
Now I'm only 49 turkeys behind my Dad's harvest total. The legal limit in Missouri is four per year. I need to shoot the maximum for 12 years to have a chance to catch him.
I had a chance to see several spring migrants after I carried my gobbler out to the road to meet Dad. This morning's bird list includes eastern meadowlark, northern cardinal, American crow, northern bobwhite, redwinged blackbird, brown thrasher, blue jay, American goldfinch, eastern kingbird, indigo bunting, blue-gray gnatcatcher, turkey vulture, Canada goose, dickcissel, bobolink, and scissor-tailed flycatcher.
There were three grassland species foraging this morning over a fescue pasture (dickcissel, bobolink, and scissor-tail). I think this was the first time I had ever seen a bobolink in an Ozark pasture. I only noticed dickcissels in recent years. There are many thousands of acres of hay and pasture here where there was once only forest. These prairie birds are likely only migrating through. They would probably not have much success nesting in tall fescue.
So it was a good morning all way round!
