800 turkeys in hiding

March 16, 2015 blog -

The South Llano River is deemed by the Lower Colorado River Authority to be one of the “most pristine water bodies” in Texas. We went back to the South Llano River State Park today to see the river and maybe the turkeys.

I don’t know how warm it was, but this family sure seemed to enjoy tubing on this pristine river. It was milky blue, similar to the Rio Grande.

The Rio Grande turkey is the most common subspecies of wild turkey in Texas. It is found in a 400-mile band stretching from south of Tampico, Mexico, to northern Kansas. Its range is limited to land areas having an annual rainfall between 16” and 32”.

The pecan bottom land along the South Llano River has been a traditional winter roost for the turkeys for many years. Some sites here have been used for more than 100 years. From October to April each year, as many as 800 resident turkeys concentrate along the river at night to roost in the trees.

The first part of the trail that we took today was along the South Llano River. We didn’t expect to see any turkeys here, and we didn’t. But we did encounter this sign…

and a tree that had evidently given in to flooding and erosion.

We also noticed these sheep grazing on the other side of the river. I had no idea Texas supported so many sheep and goat herds. We have seen more sheep and goats than cattle.

The second half of the trail was adjacent to the turkey roost area and at one point we went directly across the roosting grounds. This particular trail was only available 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. At other times it is closed because turkeys require quiet, disturbance-free roosts. But no turkeys did we see.

Along the trail we saw this enclosure.  This is called an “Excluder”. Their purpose is to study the effect on the plant community of excluding browse animals. This excluder prevents deer, goats and similar animals from browsing the plants inside. We were supposed to compare the number of small trees inside this excluder with those outside. I guess I could see that there were more inside.