No Sharp Pencils In The Box

Present a turkey with a challenge and it is thrown for a loop.  Tribes are drifting through in larger numbers throughout the day as fall approaches.  Most of the time they seem to follow a regular pattern of travel.  There are mornings when they get diverted, however, possibly lured by the hanging grapes next door.  Usually seen as pedestrians, it is easy to forget that turkeys are excellent fliers.  They have to get over a six-to-eight-foot deer fence to get to those grapes and have no trouble.  Getting back on their beaten path, they fly over it again and land in the goat pen.  So far, so good.  I watch from my seat while milking as eight or ten turkeys mosey through the goat herd and cross to the far fence, only about four and a half feet high on this side.  And that's where the problem starts.  Short-term memory loss?  How is it possible that in the time it took to cross the pen that they forget how they got there in the first place?  "Oh, no!  We're trapped!"  They run dithering back and forth along the fence line.  Finally a dim light flickers and one will fly over to freedom.  Ta DA!  Unfortunately, the others seem incapable of learning by example and continue to look for an escape route.  One at a time, they figure it out until there's only one left in the pen, and that pitiful dimwit cries and calls, "Don't leave me!  Wait for me!  Come back!"  The flock offers no encouragement and slowly starts off in the direction of breakfast under the oak.  At last the lone bird looks up, flies over and runs to join her companions, acting as if nothing had happened.  Who needs television?