Chickens and turkeys

I finally have some pictures of our newest additions - our chickens! We have two roosters, but one of them as declared himself alpha male. He makes it clear to the other rooster that HE rules the roost. This weekend we let them out into the yard to scratch around (they love this - looking for bugs, worms, whatever else). The alpha rooster was with a few of the hens and he happened to see the other rooster with a few of the other hens near the coop. The alpha rooster saw this and did not approve - he flew - yes, flew - over to the other rooster and gave him a piece of his mind, clucking away! He actually ran the other rooster back into the coop, as if to put him in timeout! It was quite comical. The alpha rooster is the one below - white and black with a magnificant plume of green tail feathers.



Here he is with a couple of his girls....



I think we have four of the rhode island red hens - here are three of these lovely ladies below (two of them with their tail feathers up).







Last Monday I was home for the MLK holiday. I spent the morning cleaning around the house and keeping the fire burning. I came downstairs at one point and looked out into the backyard to see a dozen fat turkeys! I scrambled to my camera and snuck out the front door, eased around the corner of the house and prepared to take a snapshot. But one of the turkeys caught my eye. In a flash, they were into the woods - one of them even jumped up into the tree. I only got a few shots and this was the best one. We've heard and seen the turkeys in neighboring cow fields before, but I've never seen this many in our backyard! If you use your imagination and squint just right, you see a turkey on the limb in the tree and maybe a few blobs heading deep into the woods.