I ’ve seen them in the distance poking around in a spent and sheared cornfield, foraging for discarded ears and fat yellow kernels. I’ve had to stop in the road to let them cross or caught them scavenging below my birdfeeders for the discards and droppings. Occasionally, I hear a lone one clucking from a thicket, then spy it making its long-necked way through the brush and slash. But always, the sight of wild turkeys startles, if only because of their great size and sometimes, too, because of their numbers.

Wild turkeys have become a common sight here in our corner of the world, and I am always thrilled to come upon them. Most recently, a small flock appeared out of a thicket on the Mast Road in Lyman, and oddly were not too perturbed when I stopped to watch them. Usually, just the sound of my car idling is enough to send them off scattered into the underbrush. But this particular bunch didn’t appear to be too bothered by me or by my car. The flock seemed to be composed totally of hens of different sizes and ages, and one had become separated from the rest. But it quickly caught up with them at the foot of a long driveway, and they all headed very nonchalantly into the woods.

This is the time of year when the hens and their young, called poults, assemble into flocks that can be composed of at least half a dozen to two dozen, and sometimes even as many as 50, according to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s website. The adult toms, on the other hand, prefer to be on their own but may form small groups of up to five when not breeding. And it’s not unusual for turkeys to travel several miles in one day while foraging for food, which can be in the form of vegetation, berries, nuts, seeds and grains. When those foods become scarce, turkeys will also consume whatever vegetation they can find along the edges of streams and areas along the edges of open fields that are not under snow.

Wild turkeys were numerous in many parts of Maine during the early 1800’s. As agriculture expanded and more open forests were cut down to make way for farmland, their preferred topography diminished, and so did their numbers. After 1970, the reverse process took place, with much abandoned farmland reverting once again to woodlands, thus recreating the turkeys’ ideal habitat. Since then, it’s been touch-and-go for the various game club efforts to reintroduce the birds to the state, with snow being a major obstacle to their distribution. Something must be going right, though, considering how often I come across these large birds or how frequently I see them feasting on the droppings from my bird feeders each winter.

A few years ago on a bright winter morning, a cat I owned at the time spotted a small flock of turkeys foraging a few feet from the back porch. Off he went at a swift run, his feline hunting instinct kicking into high gear, only to be disappointed when he saw all those big meaty birds take to the air and end up in a nearby pine tree. If Toby had known that turkeys can fly up to a mile at a speed of up to 60 miles per hour, he may have thought twice about expending so much energy in a futile attempt to bag one. He was simply doing what cats do, while the turkeys were doing what they do, and neither was the worse for wear.

In all my years of birdwatching, I’ve only seen a tom in full feather regalia once. It happened a few years ago at a friend’s house in Hollis. From her back windows, we watched the production with a shared set of binoculars as Mr. Tom put on a good show for the few hens in his entourage. It went on for a long time, and while to us, it seemed that the hens could not have cared less, I’m sure this was all part of the mating process, whose finer points are known only to the birds themselves.

If I’m not mistaken, the fall wild turkey hunting season is almost upon us and runs through most of October in these parts. I’ve had plenty of domestic turkey in my time but have never had the honor of tasting a wild one. After coming upon them in my travels so unexpectedly at times, I have a hard time reconciling that aesthetic with actually seeing it laid out on a Thanksgiving Day platter as the piece de resistance.

Silly me, I know. Where do I think that succulent bird comes from that I partake of each year on that day, if not from a farm where it was raised just for that purpose? But, I would argue, I didn’t actually see that particular bird or was privy to its demise. Yet, for some reason, I prefer to think that all their wild kin I see crossing a road in front of me or walking out of the woods near my porch are somehow immune from that fate. It’s got nothing to do with being squeamish or mawkish, and everything to do with hoping that creatures that have known nothing but being wild and free remain that way.

— Rachel Lovejoy, a freelance writer living in Lyman, who enjoys exploring the woods of southern Maine, can be reached via email at [email protected].