Nothing Brings the Neighborhood Like Wild Turkey

Well, no not that kind of turkey.

A few Saturdays ago I was working in the backyard when a swooping sound caught my attention. A shadow darkened the backyard and I looked up with my best Frodo-In-Danger in face, convinced that a ringwraith was coming to get me. I held out one of Poncho's nasty tennis balls as an offering, and prayed for Gandalf to save me. But then I realized it wasn't a ringwraith coming to get me at all.

It turns out it was a wild turkey. In our backyard. It ended up landing on the neighbor's roof. So I yelled into the house to get Emily outside. When she came out and I pointed out the turkey to her I realized we had an audience. There were a few grown-ups and a lot of kids in our alley following the path of the bird. Emily said, "Turkeys can't fly!" And some Marlin Perkins charachter in the alley let us know that wild turkeys can fly, Thanksgiving-bred turkeys cannot.

The turkey eventually left its perch and flew north. Apparently it kept flying north for about another five miles, because less than a week later, the following story appeared in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Wild turkey checks out downtown living
April 8, 2005

"It's going to be 'Something Fowl at the Hennepin County Government Center,' right?"
That was the headline suggested by county spokeswoman LuAnn Schmaus after she and other government employees in downtown Minneapolis fielded calls Thursday morning about a wild turkey wandering the streets.

Unlike its four cousins in Golden Valley, which have been pecking car tires and being general nuisances, this bird was pretty mellow.

"It was resting on our north plaza, enjoying the sunlight and freaking people out," Schmaus reported dryly. "I didn't even go out and look. I see wild turkeys at my grandma's all the time, but I guess some people aren't used to seeing livestock."

Animal Control officers didn't respond, she said, "because they don't deal with wild turkeys."

Schmaus said that the turkey "not only visited our plaza, but it also went to the Pillsbury Plaza and walked around."

A passing police car's siren sent the bird running; it was last seen heading toward the Warehouse District along the light rail tracks.

"Maybe toward Marshall Field's," Schmaus added.

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