Turkey Attack - strutting turkey scares off deer

The old female deer in the front must have seen a strutting turkey before. She showed no fear. The younger buck behind her was much more apprehensive. He watched for a while, but when the turkey speeded up his approach, he lost his cool and left. (Wild animals on our farm.)

The Virginia White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), often simply called the whitetail, is found throughout most of the U.S., southern Canada, Central America, and in the northern portions of South America. However, in the western U.S., the mule or black-tailed deer is more common.

The White-tailed deer is a generalist, which can adapt to a wide variety of habitats, including woodland, open savanna, and even sage areas. The coat is grey-brown in the fall and winter and reddish brown in the spring and summer. It is recognizable by its white underside of its tail, which it uses as a signal to other deer.

The male (buck) can weigh more than 400 pounds and the female up to 175 pounds. Males of one year or older have antlers. Young bucks with very small antlers are called button bucks. When the antlers begin to grow in the late spring, they are covered with a very vascular tissue known as velvet or moss. This drops off later. The Boone & Crockett scoring system is used to rate antlers or racks. Bucks shed their antlers at the end of breeding season (rut). Some female deer also have antlers. Ohio has some world champion bucks with Boone and Crockett scores of over 300 points.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Strutting
• turkey
• scares
• deer
• intimidation
• fear
• buck
• Ohio
• attack
• wild
• animal
• natural
• setting
• thanksgiving