Wild turkeys call Council Bluffs home

On gray day in Columbia Falls’ Council Bluff neighborhood, a flock of turkeys picked their way along Karen and Jerry Lawson’s front yard, eating berries off bushes and scratching through leaves for seeds.

For the most part, the Lawsons enjoy the Thanksgiving Day icons in their yard.

“Until they do their duty in the driveway,” Jerry quips.

The big birds poked around a bit and then headed across the street to another yard.

“They’re kind of fun to watch,” neighbor Mark Beckwith said. “In the spring, they fight.”

The neighborhood provides good habitat, with big cottonwood trees and bluffs that drop down to the Flathead River, providing a wooded area to roam in.

As near as anyone can tell, the wild turkeys — Karen once counted 19 of them — have lived in the neighborhood for at least 15 years, maybe closer to 20.

Wild turkeys are not native to Montana. Lewis and Clark saw turkeys near the Missouri River in South Dakota and North Dakota, but not as far west as Montana. According to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesperson John Fraley, a private citizen introduced turkeys to the Flathead Valley in the 1960s.

The Columbia Falls turkeys are likely a hybrid, perhaps an eastern subspecies, said Randy Gaskins of the National Wild Turkey Federation, a turkey conservation group. Eastern birds are similar, he said, but they have almost no tolerance for humans.

Today, turkeys are common enough across most of the state to allow hunting in the spring and fall. Hunters need to purchase a turkey stamp.

No one in Council Bluffs is much interested in making them dinner.

“They’re too nice to have in the yard,” Karen said.