A Nice Little Surprise on the Way to the Botanic Garden

Last weekend I headed for the botanic garden for a couple of hours of shooting and walking. I entered the gate, pleased that we'd renewed our one-year pass, and was motoring slowly along the long driveway when I spied a group of wild turkeys.

As I recall there was one male and several females.  The male was definitely showing off.

I stopped the car and fortunately had a long zoom attached to my camera.  I did get a few shots of the turkeys in the field next to the car.  However, my favorite shot was this "attitude" shot taken as the male crossed the road in front of me and headed into the woods on the other side, following the females.

I posted the image on my Instagram and Facebook pages, with the title: "Struttin' Swagger".  It's fun to think of titles for photos.  I'm thinking better titles might be:

Struttin' Some Stuff

Showing Some Attitude

I like the fact that the turkey is in the middle of the road, looking ready to stop all traffic while he struts his stuff slowly across to the other side.

I personally think that the above image makes a better story than the "natural" images I took of him displaying in the field.  That being said, below is the best shot I was able to get of him in the field.

(Both of these images were taken zoomed to 280mm (equiv) and wide open at F5.6 on my Panasonic 14-140 "travel" zoom.  Shutter at 1/320 and ISO at base 200.)