John Levine shares his experience with wild turkeys and what makes them interesting birds.
Traffic slowed down, then suddenly stopped. I was on my way home from running errands and, though I was not in a huge hurry, I found myself tensing up. I got out of my car to see what the holdup was. A flock of wild turkeys – five to be exact – was leisurely crossing the street.
Though, they weren’t moving very fast. In fact, they just seemed to be walking to and fro, oblivious to the cars that had stopped to avoid hitting them. I was impressed that my fellow motorists were willing to take a few minutes out of their busy day to allow these birds to find their way across the street.
I was reminded of other instances when I found my schedule interrupted by wildlife crossing – waiting for sheep to traverse a rural road in New Zealand, watching a herd of cattle meander across a byway in Nigeria. I was on vacation then, so I wasn’t as concerned about getting somewhere. I saw the animals as more of a spectacle and less of an inconvenience. Recently, there have been stories of people intimidated by the proliferation of turkeys; some birds have been reportedly acting aggressively.
More than a few stories about birds pecking car doors, supposedly part of a mating ritual, mistaking their reflection for a rival turkey. There’s a myth that Benjamin Franklin lobbied for the wild turkey as the American symbol over the bald eagle; he considered the turkey “a much more respectable Bird” than the eagle.