A few weeks ago my wife and I were startled from sleep with loud footsteps. My wife shouted, "who's there?" I sprang up from bed and listened closely. I determined that the footsteps were coming from the roof. I said to her, "It's probably a cat or squirrel on the roof" and went back to sleep. The next morning we heard the footsteps about the same time: 6:30 am. This time I wanted to investigate. The scratchy sound was too loud for cat paws or squirrel feet. I went in the back yard and spotted a turkey pacing on the peak of the roof. I discovered that a 20-pound turkey with hard claws can make a lot of noise on tar shingles covered with grit. 
I read in the Marin IJ a few years ago that domestic turkeys were let loose just north of our house in Novato. They were causing problems for residents. And now a turkey was roosting on my rooftop in Tam Valley.
I later realized that there was not one turkey on our rooftop but several. I also figured out that it was the mama turkey who landed first on the roof at dawn, then called to her babies to join here for a morning meeting.
After about a week of this precise morning ritual, I decided to capture the turkey meeting on video. Click on the turkey picture to see the 10 minute video taken during the early morning of September 2, 2005. [10.9 MB]
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