Pennsylvania Game News - October 2020 - 17

suit's first field test, turkeys began dropping from the roost within 20 yards of
Gulvas' setup, and one of the first hens to
hit the ground picked him out and circled
away. A couple more turkeys flew down,
and similarly took notice and moved off
warily. Then a hen touched down and
immediately flew back up in a tree.
On the days that followed, the same
thing happened, again and again. Any
turkeys working toward Gulvas seemed
to start working away from him once they
got within 25 yards, and sometimes they'd
see him and fly back to the roost.
"So what's that tell you right there?"
he asked.
While it took some contemplating,
what it told Gulvas is the suit's stringy
fibers look like hair to turkeys, and they
were reacting to it as if it were a predator.
Whatever the case, when he went back
to his old camouflage, the turkeys returned
to their regular ways. On occasions he'd
take the suit out of storage, not thoroughly
convinced it was spooking tukeys, they'd
detect him and approach only so close.
"I've run enough tests to conclude
turkeys were seeing it," he said.
Similarly, turkeys have shown they
take notice of the wind-blocking microphone covers Gulvas uses while filming.
The covers are made of synthetic fur, and
when turkeys see them - 16 inches in the
air on a microphone stand - they generally
keep their distance. Or at least they did, as
Gulvas cycled through a variety of cover
colors including gray, brown and black.
Then he started using forest-green covers
of the same material - and they caused
turkeys none of the same apprehension,
he said.
"I guess they know no animal out there
has green fur," Gulvas said.
Turkeys also seem to know exactly
how much they can get away with in
OCTOBER 2020

their encounters with wild predators,
which would explain why they keep their
distance, but usually won't run or fly off
if they see one.
Gulvas witnessed this up close, years
ago, while filming in the Quehanna Wild
Area. Sitting about 15 yards from an
inflatable hen decoy, he called in a gobbler he knew could see the decoy, but,
curiously, it hung up. Soon Gulvas noticed
a pair of black-tipped ears poking out of
the weeds. It was a bobcat, apparently
stalking the decoy, and Gulvas figured
the gobbler's reaction meant it must have
seen the cat, too.
About 8 yards from the decoy, the
bobcat hunkered down next to a log,
where it blended in perfectly. And soon
more turkeys - two hens and two gobblers - were headed uphill toward Gulvas.
One of the hens beelined for the decoy,
evidently to confront a perceived rival,
but just before it got there, it spotted the
bobcat. The hen locked eyes with the cat
and began directing warning notes right at
it, as if saying, "I see you, but you're not
going to get me." Talking all the while, the
hen paced back in forth in an arc, about 15
feet in front of the cat, seeming to know
it was just outside the predator's reach.
"It was almost like there was a line
drawn in the sand," Gulvas said.
Soon, though, the hen had enough,
flying up 35 feet to a branch. The other
turkeys vanished and the bobcat pounced
the decoy, popping it, then running off,
appearing quite confused about all that
just happened.
Of course, minimizing movement
remains the biggest key in remaining
undetected during close encounters with
turkeys.
Turkeys' ability to pick up movement
17
Pennsylvania Game News - October 2020

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