Dressed from head to foot in tattered shards of browns, grays and here-and-there greens I might resemble a military sniper. That is what I am: an assassin. My target is a male turkey, hopefully a mature gobbler.

Turkeys have exceptional eyesight and hearing. They can detect the slightest of movements. Caution is always front and center. If they feel uneasy, they can display an amazing speed in their escape.

During spring turkey hunting I leave the house in the frosty darkness. I find a hefty tree, usually an oak, that I can sit against in the vicinity of roosting turkeys. I pull a piece of dark green, one and a half inch thick foam from my pack to sit on. I use my turkey call sparingly to imitate a hen. My goal is to entice a gobbler to come and investigate. 

The longer I sit stoically against the tree the more attuned I am to the knobs, crags, and ridges that make up my back rest. Some would call it uncomfortable. Others would grumble that the hunt is an ordeal. I call it a privilege.

Sitting unmoving, I try to become a sort of burl to the tree. One with the tree.

One of the advantages of hunting in the spring is that the outing coincides with the spring bird migration. I have always taken pride in my ability to identify birds by their vocalizations. My mind drifts back to when I was a student at the University of Minnesota. I had the privilege of attending the University’s Biological Station up on Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota. One of the classes I took that spring was Ornithology and it was that experience that really turned me on to birds. 

One of the projects I worked on was noting which bird species were using a thirty acre study plot in a mixed deciduous/coniferous forest.  As spring progressed and the trees’ foliage exploded, it became difficult to see the birds and necessary to listen and learn the multitude of bird songs. My bird identification skills accelerated. 

Part of our final exam was strolling on a fine May morning with our class Teacher’s Assistant out on Bear Paw Point where he would point in the direction of a singing bird. Each student carried  a clipboard and pad of paper to record our guesses of the mystery bird song. I was one of two students to correctly identify 100% of the singing birds. 

These days the free app Merlin helps people identify bird songs. I have to say it’s pretty accurate but if there are several birds singing or the vocalization is too distant it can make mistakes. Overall, Merlin is spot on 80-90% of the time. 

That bird song quiz on the shore of Lake Itasca was over fifty years ago and now I wear hearing aids to help me pick up the higher frequencies. 

On the first morning of my hunt the sun climbed into the sky gradually spilling its light across the corn stubble. Nearby birds starting singing and vocalizing. With no obvious turkey nearby, I dared to slip my phone out of my pocket to list the bird species I could hear over a fifteen-minute timeframe.  

Besides the distant gobble of wild turkeys, I heard a red-bellied woodpecker, Canada geese, sandhill cranes, ring-necked pheasants, a robin, a cardinal, crows, white-throated sparrow (migrants heading north), and a northern flicker. Nearby an eastern towhee trilled its lovely pneumonic invitation to “drink-your-teeeea.” And across the field in a line of red oaks I smiled with the song of the brown thrasher repeating itself. 

I decided to see what Merlin could pick up that perhaps I wasn’t hearing. While the app is a great tool I am hesitant to use it as I like to test my skills. On this morning, it didn’t add any species and it could not hear the distant thrasher repeating itself. I felt a moment of smugness in having identified more bird songs than the computer.

Over the next couple of days, gobbling turkeys came closer but not close enough. It seems these amorous males must be in the company of live hens. Consequently they are not about to seek out the hen siren calls that I was delivering.

My body was aching from my daily efforts in trying to merge with a tree. One afternoon, I remained still for four and a half hours as I half laid and half sat against a large old windfall limb. Both the limb and I were clearly weathered but I dared not move as there were feeding turkey hens strolling all around me. But no gobblers.

The following morning, my aching body resumed its position with the knob of the tree jabbing my lower back and broken stub poking my hip. At dawn I watched two gobblers fly out of the oaks that they had roosted in and glide to the ground a hundred yards in front of me. Soon two more gobblers and a half dozen hens joined the gathering.  Even though they were out of range, it was fun to watch the flock. Any movements I made were slower than an emerging shadow. 

Finally one of the mature toms broke off from the turkey huddle and edged my way. I gave a couple soft yelps and clucks out of my mouth call and glacially readied myself. The bird paused and stared in my direction. Then he made what was to be his death march directly towards me. 

Last night we had a big salad that included smoked turkey breast. And again, I repeated, “Thank you turkey.”

NOTE: It turns out that somewhere in that zigzagging half mile hike back to our house, with the turkey slung over my shoulder, my right hearing aid fell out. I filed an insurance claim, talked to an adjuster and today I pick up my new one. And no, that doesn’t mean for the last ten days I’ve heard only half the birds.