Many years ago I did a landscaping project for a friend of mine. I started by cleaning up the overgrown perennial beds around the house and garage. It was choked with weeds, but thankfully due to the landscape fabric used when it was first installed, all I had to do was pull up huge sections and it came up in a tangled mass of green matter.

It took me several weeks to remove the old and rebuild the borders with a lovely purplish rock purchased from another friend in the rock business. To complete the project, I brought in a lot of new perennials to spruce it up, particularly in the shaded areas.

When you work on a project like this, you tend to become a bit attached. Plus, it was a place I enjoyed working. They lived on a gravel road off the beaten path, where deer and turkeys were fairly common.

I loved watching the groups of birds walking through the yard in the morning, obviously curious as to what I was doing, but still not bold enough to allow me to approach too closely.

But, with all of the work you can imagine my enormous irritation when I showed up one day to find an entire section freshly tilled. The turkeys turned over everything at the end of the porch looking for tasty treats. I was hankering for a turkey dinner.

Suburban Wild Turkeys

Wild turkeys are making a comeback in many areas of the country, including suburban neighborhoods.

While most people enjoy watching them mill about in open fields or grassy areas they can become an issue when they excavate areas below bird feeders, one of their favorite places to loiter, or fluff up your garden looking for insects. Some even eat new greens and growth in the spring.

This behavior doesn’t win friends with gardeners.

One of the easiest ways to discourage wild turkeys is to set chicken wire over areas where they might dig. This can be under the bird feeder or in the favorite section of the garden. It usually doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to keep them out. If they’re particularly persistent, or coming in to the garden to eat the new growth, the motion triggered sprinkler called Scarecrow works very well. Turkeys are plenty big enough to trigger it, and it definitely startles them.

Another issue with turkeys is aggressive behavior, particularly by toms in the spring. There was a small group near the pasture where I used to keep my horses, and the puffed up male routinely took on traffic. He eventually lost. Its far more intimidating when they come after you when youre not in a vehicle. Toms will bluff just about anything that comes into his personal space when his dander is up during breeding time in the spring. Fortunately, its mostly a show. I had one come at me several times at the pasture. I just acted like a bigger turkey to keep him at a comfortable distance. If you are concerned about perpetual aggressive behavior, call the local Fish and Game department to see if they can remove the perpetrator.

This pretty turkey photo is copyright Paul Tessier via istock.