While you were gobbling up the gobblers, I was communing with live ones in a pasture near Kerikeri, Northland.

On Thanksgiving Day, I had a bonafide turkey encounter.

As I was returning home from the Bay of Islands, I saw some large, funny-looking birds with red heads strutting through tall grass in a cow pasture next to the road. Looked like wild turkeys to me. So I flipped a U-ee and went back, grabbed my "cannon" and went in search of them.

They had moved farther into the field, so I hopped the fence and began to approach them. And it began to rain. They were turkeys, sure enough -- about six of them. But they wouldn't stand still, and their heads kept bobbing up and down, disappearing in the waist-high grass. And it began raining harder. I snapped off a couple shots, but wasn't sure I hit anything.

I tried to cut them off, but they reversed direction and disappeared over an embankment toward a herd of cows. I followed them, and then got lucky. The turkeys headed back up the embankment as I moved across the top, getting to within about 15 yards of them. Bang, bang. I had them all dead to rights. I bagged them all.

My "cannon," of course, was my Canon 35-mm camera.

By the time I was done, it was pouring down rain, and I was getting soaked. (No, the turkeys did not stare up at the sky and begin to drown.) I looked out into the pasture. The entire herd of cattle was standing there watching me. They were so transfixed, they had even stopped chewing their cud, their jaws sagging. No doubt wondering why this turkey of an American was chasing a bunch of New Zealand turkeys through their pasture. (Mind you, they were probably happy to see someone chasing the turkeys instead of them for a change.)

What was doubly ironic was that I had forgotten all about it being Thanksgiving Day, since it's not celebrated here in New Zealand. (For my dinner, I had wine and cheese, accompanied by a glass of a delightful pinot gris, at the Marsden Estate winery in Kerikeri.)

           Cheers,
           Larry