Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who celebrate today. And a very happy Thursday to those of you who don't.

Today is the 4th Wednesday of November and a day (in the US) to take stock of things and give thanks.

 I watched a show on the Pilgrims who celebrated the first Thanksgiving on PBS (The American Experience: Pilgrims) the other day.  

The Pilgrims chose to celebrate not because things were absolutely wonderful, but because they were the ones who had survived, been able to reap a harvest  and been able to keep the colony/settlement from falling apart.  They had lost around 50% of those who had settled with them only about a year earlier (lost to diseases, not enough food, and other causes).  I can't image having left so many of their group behind in Europe, and then sailing to a place which was not the one they had planned on but the one they ended up at. They didn't sail at the best time of year either, leaving England in the autumn and arriving in New England in early winter. Then they spent that winter watching so many they travelled with dying.  They robbed graves  (since many of the native Americans in that area had died from probably a smallpox outbreak not all that long before the Pilgrims arrived. This plague was brought over by European fishing fleets out in Georges Bank on the hunt for cod).  They put their dead/dying in sitting positions up against trees with guns to scare off  other Native American  communities that were not so friendly.  That must have been hard.  

So they celebrated what they did have.

 I found this show fascinating, and it put this year's Thanksgiving into a different perspective for me, especially with our current national and world situation with covid.

Just something to consider.

My art today  for Wendy's bird challenge at Art Journal Journey and also for day 26 of Leah's Art Everyday Month celebrates one of the stars of this American holiday, the turkey. Or in this case, the wild turkey.

 

Wild turkeys are definitely a success story. 

In New Hampshire not all that many years ago, there were no wild turkeys left . According the the Fish and Game webpage: Wild turkeys totally disappeared from New Hampshire 150 years ago because of habitat loss and the lack of a fish and game department to regulate hunting seasons. NH Fish and Game began transplanting wild turkeys into the state in in 1969-70 (this initial effort failed), then again in 1975. 

Now there are over 25,000 birds roaming my state. We have several rafters or flocks in my town, and it is not uncommon to come across them. I probably see them at least once a week either when I am out driving, out walking or sometimes  I even see them in my yard and underneath my bird feeders.

Here's a few photos taken in June of 2017 when one of the flocks  that live around me wandered through my yard with their little poults or babies.

You can see how little that baby is compared to the adult in this next photo. 

And from December of 2017.

Every time they visit my yard, the dogs bark if they are aware of them. (The dogs are in the house because the turkeys don't come up into the yard when the dogs are out.) That of course sends the turkeys back into the woods. They were here  just the other day, but because of barking dogs I didn't get any photos.  I just saw them walking away in between the trees.

I've thought about putting out corn for them, but unlike songbirds,  Fish and Game doesn't encourage the feeding of wildlife like flocks of turkeys. Probably smart, but it must be hard for turkeys to get enough food when the snow covers the ground.

There is turkey on my menu today , but not wild turkey as there are no hunters in my house.   And I am grateful I get to interact with these interesting birds, among other things too.

Hope you are are thankful for something today and that you also have a wonderful day!

Thanks for visiting!