{"id":796,"date":"2005-11-26T19:08:00","date_gmt":"2005-11-26T19:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/?p=796"},"modified":"2005-11-26T19:08:00","modified_gmt":"2005-11-26T19:08:00","slug":"a-very-different-turkey-on-thanksgiving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/a-very-different-turkey-on-thanksgiving\/","title":{"rendered":"A very different turkey on Thanksgiving"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday was the Thanksgiving<\/a> holiday in the US, a day that traditionally includes overindulging on a turkey dinner. As anyone who has participated in a grade school play knows, the holiday is supposed to symbolize the meal the Pilgrims shared with the Native A\"\"<\/a>mericans who befriended them and helped them survive their first harsh winter. The turkey somehow became a centerpiece of the feast and, as perhaps only Americans can do, we created a whole new species of turkey<\/a> to satisfy our desire for bigger and better. Hence, we now feast on a bird that is incredibly distanced from the wild turkey that the Pilgrims knew. That wild turkey was so admired that Benjamin Franklin<\/a> wanted it as our national symbol. The Bald Eagle, of course, was chosen and then we almost wiped out that species. We have a strange way of showing our appreciation don’t we?<\/p>\n

I’ve strayed from the point of my story! So, Thursday was Thanksgiving and I looked forward to having a traditional dinner with my family. But my family decided that Thanksgiving would be celebrated this year on Sunday, which left me with no plans for the actual holiday. So I headed to the Wichita Mountains<\/a> — my very favorite place to find a better attitude.<\/p>\n

I had a wonderful day and was treated to a Rock Wren<\/a>, Rufous-crowned Sparrow, and some spectacular views of buffalo, white-tailed deer and elk. But I also came across two wild turkeys who let me take photos of them as they foraged in the grasses. They were my Thanksgiving gift and I’m delighted to share a photo. This is what a real turkey looks like!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday was the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, a day that traditionally includes overindulging on a turkey dinner. As anyone who has participated in a grade school play knows, the holiday is supposed to symbolize the meal the Pilgrims shared with the Native Americans who befriended them and helped them survive their first harsh winter. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}