Once I discovered a bearded hen and tried five weeks to catch her with the lens, and never saw her but twice during that time. The next season I found her again in company with three other hens. I called them within ten or twelve feet. This time it had been sunlight all day, but just a minute before they came near enough a thin haze covered the sun. Still, I pressed the button and got a dim negative of her and of one of her playmates, and have not seen her since.
To successfully photograph wild turkeys the greatest care must be taken in having a blind perfectly natural in appearance. Once in the blind, do not move; never mind the wind; wild turkeys cannot smell you any farther than you can them, but they can outsee anything except the heron, crane, and hawk, and you must get within fifteen or twenty feet of them in the bright sunshine, or no picture. Find their scratching places and hide behind a log, or make a blind of brush and green leaves, etc. Be sure to hide all the camera save the disk of the lens, and they will see that nearly every time. I have had them discover the lens and approach within two feet and peer at it with curious wonder, whine and purr, until satisfied it would not harm them, then walk serenely away.
At times when I saw a flock or an individual feeding at a distance, I would take my call and invite them to advance, "stand up and look pleasant," and if in the humor they would often comply. I have a friend living in New Orleans with whom a hundred happy hours have been spent in the camp, wild woods, and along the stream, chiefly in quest of these noble fowls. He and I have exchanged letters once a week for the past quarter of a century. Of course I regale him with every new photograph taken of turkeys. One day I mailed him several that set him afire, and on a certain day friend Renaud came to me with his old 10-gauge which has served him thousands of times.
The next morning when day broke we sat on the crest of a pine ridge adjacent to the hummock bordering the "Big-bee" river swamps, over which the turkeys roosted at night. Ere long the gray of the eastern horizon began to melt in to a rosy hue, and suddenly out of the deep swamp came the shrill, guttural but mighty pleasing "Gil-obble-obble-obble," of a turkey, echoing along the slopes and through the vales of the surrounding forests.
After a while we heard him gobble on the ridge, so I took my call and began to pipe a few words in turkey vernacular, which the old gentleman seemed to comprehend by the way he gave ready reply. By this time the turkeys had all flown down, several gobbling in as many directions. Several were approaching slowly, and we could hear them below the crest of the hill. Luck favored us, so far as nothing yet had disturbed them, and they gradually came nearer, until presently a remark from my companion, "Old Gobbler in sight?" "See him coming, two of them, yes, three"; and on they came, their great black breasts glowing in the bright sun, while their long beards swung from side to side.
Suddenly, when within thirty paces of us, one of them spied Renaud's new drab corduroy cap, which contrasted vividly with the black and charred log behind which we were hid, and "Put," "put;" all were gone, helter-skelter.
Renaud's heart was broken—mine wrecked.
"Why in the d-dickens didn't you shoot?" I asked, mad as a hornet.
"I wanted to get them in position to get the two largest ones."
"Gee! you ought to have made sure of that fellow with the immense beard, and chance another on the rise or run;" but just as we were waxing into a fine quarrel, R. remarked in a whisper, "They are coming back."