Yesterday afternoon I was out for a run. On my way towards home, on a narrow stretch of class IV road (dirt, minimally maintained, for those of you with only pavement around you), I was startled by a loud blast of noise. It was a fluttering, blustery, croaking flapping.  It was a turkey. Some think turkeys can’t fly, but that ain’t so. This turkey flew from the field next to the road up into a maple tree. It sat there hiding, as if I couldn’t see it, although I clearly could. People are called turkeys for nothing.

Out where it came from in the field there was… something. That something was a coyote. Its head was poking out of the tall grass, ears pointing up and listening. It looked at me. I looked at it. It had flushed the turkey, the one that got away. The thing is, there was another turkey there. It was meandering through the grass slowly, just its head above the grass, a short distance from the coyote. The coyote eyed it, followed it a little, but the jig was up. There was a human in the picture, and the turkey still on the ground knew it was being pursued. So the canine turned around and headed into the woods on the field’s far side.

I have to admit I was a little elated to see such an event. Nothing happened, but still, these charismatic fauna were playing out the ancient game of predator and prey.  One doesn’t see that every day, and I certainly wasn’t expecting it on one of my usual runs. But there it was. I watched it. I’ll take it.