[cobirds] Question about suburban Wild Turkeys in CO

I used to spend part of the year in St. Paul, Minnesota. There, Wild Turkeys were a common urban / suburban sight. They were regular on the University of Minnesota campus, which is adjacent the Mississippi River. One of my favorite CBC moments, too, came with these birds -- a flock in a residential crabapple tree in a tiny yard.

Several years ago, I saw a Wild Turkey jaunting down the street of the Capitol Hill neighborhood in central Denver. Later that night, a coworker who happened to live in that neighborhood sent me a photo of the same bird in her yard. While I don't expect turkeys to soon move into to Cheesman Park in Denver, there seem to be increasingly frequent reports of multiple Wild Turkeys in the southern suburbs of Denver, in Arapahoe County. This is a more residential and densely populated area than where turkeys seem typically reported in the Denver metro area (the state parks, S. Platte River, and Bluff Lake). The southern suburbs have relatively small (when compared to the state parks), but fairly rich open spaces, preserves, and trail systems. It is also include communities that feature large homes and even larger properties. The trails, meanwhile, form fairly continuous corridors among many of the parks, open spaces, and preserves; several also lead to areas where turkeys are more common. 

This is all a long way of asking -- What suburban and urban areas in Colorado have Wild Turkeys that regularly appear in residential or commercial areas (as opposed to in large protected spaces)? (Fort Collins seems to, according to eBird?) Where (that is, what sort of habitats -- not specific locations) in those spaces do they seem to spend their time, eat, or nest even? What, in other words, is needed for Wild Turkeys to thrive in fairly residential or commercial locations in Colorado?

And does anyone have thoughts on the likelihood of Wild Turkeys moving out of the larger protected spaces into suburban or urbanized areas around the Denver metro area, if only at the edges?

- Jared Del Rosso

Centennial, CO

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