Sasquatch?

We think there is something big in our woods. So far we've found no scat or tracks, but yesterday Thomas discovered a large area of turkey feathers in our yard near the edge of the trees. Our conclusion: an animal big enough to take down a turkey shares our ten acres with us. Thomas called me at the office and told me to go to the salt lick when I came in to see what he had discovered.

When I came home a little while later I carefully drove down the lane, looked toward the salt lick but saw nothing unusual from that distance. Walking toward the area, before I knew what I was going to find, I thought I heard something moving in the woods. When I saw the feathers and imagined the law of the jungle and survival of the fittest, I wondered about the sound--but I didn't hear it again even though I lingered there for a minute or two.

Whether of significance or not, these feathers are in the exact same area where the bobcat appeared several months ago. On that day Thomas had insisted that the squirrels leave the bird feeders, using his BB gun to deliver the message. As they scampered back to the woods a bobcat bounded out of the underbrush, intercepted one of the squirrels, clamped it securely in its mouth, gave it a shake and retreated into the woods from whence it came. We celebrated the bobcat because the squirrels had become a nuisance. And the appearing of the bobcat did keep the squirrels at bay for a time. At first they stayed high in the tree tops, but eventually returned to robbing and mutilating our bird feeders. But that's another story for another day.

The next day after the bobcat's one time appearance back in the winter,just as dawn was breaking, I saw a fox saunter through our yard staying close to the edge of our woods, again, a one time sighting. If he's still around, I guess he could have taken down a young turkey. Or, a remote possibility, would be that a neighbor's dog came into our yard and helped himself to a wild turkey. Today we will probably take time to investigate further and see what we can find. (This is almost like a Tom Sawyer adventure, isn't it!)