Pennsylvania Game News - October 2020 - 18

is widely heralded.
"But I don't think we give it enough
credit," Gulvas said.
Even miniscule movements can get
you busted, he said.
Gulvas once spooked a flock of hens
and gobblers when one or more of them
saw his thumb and forefinger slowly spin
the focus ring on his camera lens a mere
quarter-inch. They notice everything. And
it's impossible for humans not to move at
least a little bit.
While disciplined hunters will resist
turning their heads and move only their
eyes in scanning for turkeys, at a close
enough range, turkeys surely can see those
eyes moving. Even with your eyes closed,
you're never perfectly still.
On a windless, foggy morning about
three years ago, Gulvas set up beside a
log pile near a food plot where turkeys
often would head after flying off the roost.
It wasn't long before a couple gobblers
and a hen approached within 15 yards.
Motionless and tucked into cover, Gulvas
didn't expect one of the gobblers suddenly
to stretch its neck skyward and sound a
putt. After contemplating what had outed
him, Gulvas realized he had, in fact, been
moving. Everyone needs to breathe. And
on a morning when nothing else moves,
Gulvas said turkeys pick out the subtle
movements caused by breathing. He's
witnessed it on other occasions, as well.
"That's the one thing we can't stop
doing," he said.
But consider this when thinking about
turkeys and movement: Every living thing
in the woods moves, yet turkeys don't
run from every single movement. Gulvas
said some of the reason why might be
explained by turkeys' hyper-awareness of
everything going on around them.
Within their view, they'll see every
gray squirrel scaling a tree trunk and
18

Fall-turkey hunting is closed in WMUs 5C and 5D,
but seasons are held in the other 21 WMUs. In
19 of them, the season opens Oct. 31. WMUs 5A
and 5B have later-starting and shorter seasons. A
three-day Thanksgiving season, which this year
runs Wednesday, Nov. 25 to Friday, Nov. 27 will
be held in 12 WMUs. See www.pgc.pa.gov or
the Hunting & Trapping Digest for details.

every blue jay fluttering to a perch. And,
importantly, they'll hear them, whether
those animals are making small talk or
sounding their own alarms that something
is out of place. Wherever they go, Gulvas
said, turkeys are finely in tune with their
surroundings, and it helps to steer their
reactions.
Filming one morning after turkeys flew
down from a nearby roost, something
tipped off a gobbler to Gulvas' presence.
Thinking fast, Gulvas - who's a master
of mouthing wildlife sounds - chattered
like an excited squirrel. A gray squirrel
had been rummaging for acorns at first
light, and he knew the turkeys knew it
was there, too.
"As soon as I started making sounds,
the turkeys went back to feeding," he said.
Seldom, however, does a turkey's sense
of awareness work in a hunter's favor.
Filming in Potter County years ago,
Gulvas called in a gobbler from the next
mountain over. It dropped 1,200 feet down
the side of one face, crossed a creek and
marched up the other - a 45-minute trek
- only to see the decoy, turn around and
fly back to the mountain it left.
"After all of that," Gulvas said.
Exactly what the gobbler saw is anybody's guess, but it was enough to tell it
something wasn't quite right, and it didn't
stick around to investigate further. Such is
the nature of turkeys.
"They are so spooky," Gulvas said.
"They are, and they have to be. How else
are they going to survive?"
http://www.pgc.pa.gov
Pennsylvania Game News - October 2020

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