Tough day for the weekend patrols. The creek is flowing despite a 1F degree temperature at 8am. Murphy was ready to run to Nome right from the front door but I hung on and we went down the snow-machine trail past the bridge alpha over the creek.
These are our pictures.
Last weekend during the February thaw, we did a thorough patrol on both sides of the road. The snow cover had been reduced enough to allow relatively easy hiking through the woods (as compared to staying on the snow machine trail during the peak snow period).
As we wandered on the other side of the road, we noticed a multitude of turkey tracks, fresh ones. We wondered how could there be such fresh and voluminous tracks but see nothing alive around us. At one point as I surveyed up to the ridge line, my radar man started to peer intently. Sure enough. We saw movement and then the anticipated twenty or more turkeys appeared among the trees. Look at the center here and you can see a small part of the herd that we saw.
I am counting eight here (one is a guess but the others are for sure).