The ones in our neighborhood like the crabapples. We didn't have any crabapples make it as far as winter this year, and I didn't see any wild turkeys in the yard this winter. Bummer!

I like to just watch them from the safety of my house. (I'm a big scaredy cat!)

We have wild turkeys that visit our yard throughout the winter. I know they eat acorns, as well as bird seed (the sunflower hearts that the feeder birds drop). The turkeys have never bothered any of our ornamental shrubs or plants.

Regarding interaction with people, our wild turkeys are very skittish! I've heard bizarre stories of marauding toms threatening postal workers (!), but I think that's a rarity.

Turkeys that become accustomed to people can sometimes be aggressive, but it's not common. More of a potential threat to very small children than anything else, since they might not have the sense to move away from an upset bird. There have been stories of turkeys taking over suburban yards where my mom lives in MA, but those birds may be escapees from a local turkey farm that raises a breed that looks similar to a wild bird. Generally I don't think there's anything to worry about.

I have a flock of turkeys that live on the backside of my property, earlier this year, I actually had a young jake steal two of my domestic "girls" for the day. Guess he was looking for some springtime loving, but the "girls" were back by nightfall.
The flock here is pretty skittish, I know where they roost at night and if I am out early in the morning riding fence, they bolt from the trees and fly over to the neighbors place.
Dan

My neighbor a few miles down had a wild tom seducing his peahens on a daily basis. Think the hens thought it was ok but the peacock was not sure what to think. This old wild tom would come up out of the woods and strut back and forth in front of that pen for hours...the people finally trapped him and took him off a few miles so that their birds could get a break and that they would get a break from all the gobbling and screams of "heeelllp!" "heellllp!" from the peacock.

I have a hard time believing these huge fat birds could fly into trees. They can only walk fast when I run out and shoo them away.

They are huge and ugly. They like to have dust baths on the hill side, and make a pretty big mess, as well as a lot of dust. I'll let them be, of course, but although I'm a fool for the outdoors, these critters test my limits.

Oh, they certainly do fly. The ones we have anyway. The do spend considerable amount of time on the ground, compared to other birds, but when alarmed, they are quite graceful fliers. Our backyard is fenced, so they fly in , and sometimes spend a long time looking for a way to walk out before they realize they will have to fly out.

I've seen about ten or twelve in the flock around here. Sometimes more.

Now this is an interesting discussion. I had a very funny wild turkey experience. My neighbours have a pair of domesticated wild turkeys - though when Tom struts, puffs and gobbles, he looks pretty wild.

I was sitting on my front porch when the pair came visiting a few days ago. They gobbled around for quite some time, and eventually Tom seemed to become curious. He approached the porch, jumped up onto it, looked me in the eye, gobbled, and jumped right onto my lap! Boy, was I startled. I flung him off and went inside the house. The pair stuck around all afternoon, hanging out by my bonfire pit. The female spent the afternoon rolling around in the ashes, while Tom stood by gobbling. It was a bit startling to have a wild turkey jump on your lap, but it sure was funny.

A few years back my hubs and I were camping in a small Missouri state park that was virtually deserted during the week. At one point we were the only ones there and when we pulled into the drive we startled a group of turkeys crossing into the cener of the circular drive. Evidently one turkey was afraid to cross the drive as she just stood on the edge agitated and carrying on. Afer a minute or so the rest of the flock had crossed. Evidently losing sight of the flock was worse than crossing the road so she built up the courage and went running full speed ahead, flustered and carrying on like the devil was chasing her. I had to stop the car because I was laughing so hard.

What a funny scene!

Jeanne