Story and Photo by Kate R. Schneider

Living in Sussex County, our family is often witness to parades of local wildlife. We take it for granted; after all, we never go a week without noticing at least a deer traipsing through the yard. Excluding the very common such as squirrels, birds, butterflies, the woodland denizens we've seen the most of are turkeys.
A few days ago while my mom and I were driving home, we stopped to watch twelve or thirteen of them mill around in the road. I got out of the car to take some pictures, and when they didn't run off squawking I decided that I could get a little closer for each shot. They let me come quite near before they got nervous, and when they finally ran away it seemed like they were trying to hide the fact that they, indeed, were "retreating."



At first they stepped back a little, and appeared to be discussing it with one another; then they took some long quick steps, as close to running as they could get without giving the appearance of a dash from the clutches of strange mysterious big things like automobiles or humans. Without much more hesitation, they conquered the treacherous journey of a few feet and made it to the snow bank, their refuge.
They had to hop to get up onto it and clear the plowed pile of snow that was just as tall as they were. But the fresh snow after the icier, gravelly slush of the bank was unexpectedly soft, and as each stepped in, following the first one, they sunk down to their necks. They immediately worked out a sort of system of sinking, scrabbling out of the snow-pocket, and scurrying a few inches before sinking once again.
They eventually all made it into the trees and scattered, but they left a certainly atypical turkey track behind them. Only someone with a keen eye and imagination would be able to identify it; other than that, the turkeys and I have a secret!