70 Nebraskaland • July 2020
By Gerry Steinauer
CALLING IN A DONKEY
An evening in early May, two big tom turkeys were
gobbling and strutting in the pasture behind my mother-
in-law's farm house. Having never photographed
displaying toms, this was my big chance. Luckily, my
camo, box call and hen decoy were still in my car from a
hunt, with a shotgun, a few days prior.
Early the next morning, I set my decoy in the pasture,
hid myself in a cedar row, readied my camera and started
scratching on my call. The turkeys were gobbling a few
hundred yards away behind a rise in the neighbor's alfalfa
field. I was excited – this was going to be easy.
It was about an hour later, and still no turkeys, when I
heard rustling in the grass behind me. Slowly, cautiously
I turned my head and saw three, not turkeys, but donkeys
headed directly my way. Earlier, they had been grazing,
along with the neighbor's horse herd, at the far end of
the pasture. Either my calling or the decoy had attracted
them.
Two of the donkeys stopped short, but the third warily
approached the decoy and then settled into a nose-to-
nose stare down with it. Not surprisingly, the Styrofoam
fowl won the competition, when after a few minutes, the
donkey, its curiosity apparently satisfied, slowly backed
away and walked off with its buddies.
The toms never did show up. When I finally crawled
out of the cedars and looked, they were still in the alfalfa
strutting and fanning for three hens. With real ladies
present, my mediocre calling had little chance of enticing
them away. My photographic endeavor, however, was not
a complete loss. I did take my first ever donkey photo.
THE LAST STOP
PHOTO
BY
GERRY
STEINAUER