I watched this film a year ago when it first showed on PBS, twice, and was delighted to see that it was scheduled again just before ‘turkey day”. This film gave me the courage to raise turkeys along with chickens last summer. That was a very interesting project for me. I raised both domestic turkeys and a heritage breed (heritage simply being defined as one that can reproduce naturally and on their own). The heritage ones were quite wild. It was interesting to watch this again to see if I could learn something that would help me relate to the birds next time I raise them. I see that I would need to be there when they hatch, but the heritage mama turkey was quite intimidating and well able to keep me (and other creatures) away from her nest. It was great fun watching her with the chicks and seeing them grow up, even if they didn’t let me into their world.
Thanks for such a quality video, wonderful catching of spider life and other forest inhabitants. It is one I’ll watch over and over, just to see if there is something else that I can learn and understand about the life of animals and because the photography is so beautiful.

I found some aspects of this show really great. The thing I had a big problem with is how a naturalist could do something so childish as to attempt to “see” human features in a wild animal. I didn’t see any facts backing that up. That notion is far fetched. Is he so desperate in his attempt to show a human-animal connection? What is to be gained by this? That’s as credible as if I looked up at the clouds and thought I “saw” the face of Jesus! Since he took care of them since birth, the instinct of these birds caused them to think he was the caretaker. Fine, but that doesn’t mean they have human tendencies. This notion of seeing human features in wild animals really has to be removed from our thinking, so we can respect them. That’s why they’re called wild.

It was a pleasure to watch this wonderful film a second time last night! I can’t wait to see the next wildlife encounters! A strange thing happened at my parents……a single female turkey wandered to the chicken coop and wanted in. They opened the door so she could go in and eat and has had her for over a year now and does not want to leave. Her name is Sweet Pea in memory, as she is very sweet! Thank you for bringing us back to the true realities of life and living in the moment through your interaction with turkeys.

The guy on PBS Nature with the turkeys is wearing your hat.
Great story!

The author has created something much greater possibly than he realizes. His experience and description of the year he spent in the oak hammocks speaks to the behavior and culture of all human beings. We indeed do not have a privileged access to reality, we may have lost our access to the reality of the natural world as it existed for the past 20 million years. And it is probably too late to ever get it back. All wild creatures are certainly faced with a fragmented world and with obstacles they are not prepared to deal with. Thank you for a fine program which I look forward to watching many more times and for reminding us to appreciate and to try and live in the moment. I hope to find the book which inspired the program and to send copies to many of my friends.

We watched this wonderful program on SBS in Australia this week, and I agree with all the comments above. Will try and buy the book and DVD if I can get it. Thanks again, if only more hunters watched this and instead of killing these wonderful birds and other animals, they would simply enjoy them and let them live out their lives the way God intended for them.