The Turkey Bombers!

We have several flocks of turkeys that wander around here.  I don't really pay them much mind anymore, they do the "OOOOH, APPLES" or "OOOH, ACORNS" and I try not to bother them much.

Some of the rafters are more easily spooked than others, however...

This I found out when I went out earlier than usual to open the chicken house.  It wasn't dark, but it was that odd gloom between night and sunrise, which was accentuated by heavy, dark rain clouds. I walked out under the oak tree by our door, and heard some odd noises.  Kept walking, it's not unusual to have any kind of critter making noise early like that.  It's more normal for the quiet of the night to hear crickets, frogs, occasional owls, but animal sounds are no big deal.

As I was walking, I noticed the pathway was strewn with poo.  Oh, terrific.  I skipped around the land mines, needing to finish what I was doing so I could go to work.  I walked out, opened the chicken house, and fed.

Then I walked back to the house.

Whereupon, someone spooked! 

FLAFF FLAP FLAP CRASH, (Tink, crunch, rattle), SMUNK, SKRICK! SKRICK! SKRICK!

Basically, the first one dove off the branch, which then hit another branch, startling the next bird, who also took off, giving off an alarm call, whereupon they ALL took off, in different directions.  If that wasn't exciting enough, the tree is loaded with acorns, and as each one launched, they let down a hail of acorns, and it sounded much like a typewriter on meth! I wasn't under the tree, so I saw this explosion of birds coming out of the leaves in every direction, and a rainfall of acorns below...  This all happened in about 5 to ten seconds, then they all landed, turned around, looked at me, and then almost looked disappointed, like "We got out of bed for this?" 

I walked back to the house, and the rafter re-formed, in our back yard, but I have a sneaking suspicion I might need to do some cleaning of the front walk. 

Again...