Found these images on a card I pulled last month, but hadn't checked out until last night. Check the time stamp. This is the first time I've ever seen a turkey on the ground that late. She's clearly feeding. Anybody else caught any night turkey images?
Interesting, never seen that. I guess she could have a bad wing that prevented her from flying up.. hope not, can't imagine they would last long that way.
Not out of the realm of possibility that she could be on a nest the 1st of June. Got up to get something to eat. Stayed close and then back to the nest.
Gobblers can and do gobble all night on a full moon and will fly down very early in the morning,sometimes when it is very dark in the morning. I have seen it lots of times in Kansas or Nebraska. I have been setting 100 yards or so from the roost tree and you can hear them fly out but can’t see them.
I was setting in the dark waiting for daylight at a good roosting area, about one hour before sun rise . I made one little waking up cluck . A minute later I heard a gobble real close . I said to myself that tom is on the ground. Another minute goes by and I hear walking in the leaves . I finally make out a white head at 10 yards . An old time turkey hunter once told me if you run turkey out of a tree in the dark they can't see nothing in the dark .Some would get up on a low limb and some would stay on the ground all night. But after being on the ground all night alone they would come to the first call they hear the next morning. He would go into a roosting area and beat the trees with a limb making all kinds of noise to get then to fly down in the dark just so he could call them in the next morning .
I had a gobbler on cam years ago at night during deer season. I finally saw him "roosted" one morning not more than 2 feet off the ground. He had a bad limp. I didn't see him again shortly after that.