On 2019-11-28 7:40 p.m., songbird wrote:
> Dave Smith wrote:
> ...
>> We had no turkeys here until the mid 1980s. The province of Ontario and
>> state of Michigan traded some moose for some turkeys. Apparently the
>> moose are doing fine in their new home and our turkey population
>> expanded so much that within a few years they opened up a turkey hunting
>> season.
>
> thank you for the mooses! i still have yet
> to see one in the wild myself (even after living in
> the UP of MI for 15 yrs and also driving around
> Lake Superior and trying to see them we still never
> quite managed it. i came close one evening but
> failed...)

You might consider yourself lucky that you have not seen one near the
road. I had a real scare early one morning in Algonquin Park. He woke
up early and it was pouring rain. We packed up our camping gear into my
Honda Civic and hit the road by about 6 am. We came down a hill and
around a corner and there was a bull moose standing right at the edge of
the road.


>
>
>> It's odd that I often see them in fields or by the road when I am
>> driving, and I almost always see fresh tracks in the back fields and
>> bush, but I almost never see them when I am walking back there.
>
> we have them here in the wild around us, a lot of them,
> i'm glad to see them out in the fields. they rarely get
> close to the yard here, but once in a while they might
> wander through.
>
> do you have turkey vultures?

That is another recent arrival. I first saw them when I started with my
long time employer. I was driving truck for the stock department and
my Wednesday route took me up the Grand River from Lake Erie up to
Brantford. I used to see them quite regularly along the river. That a
42 years ago. Now I see them everywhere.

We are also seeing the return of bald eagles and ospreys.