Watch Your Backside
Always good to watch the backside especially now that wild turkeys are roaming the streets of Boston. Was just on my way out this morning when I read this in The Boston Globe—
“On a recent afternoon, Kettly Jean-Felix parked her car on Beacon Street in Brookline, fed the parking meter, wheeled around to go to the optician and came face to face with a wild turkey.
The turkey eyed Jean-Felix. Jean-Felix eyed the turkey. It gobbled. She gasped. Then the turkey proceeded to follow the Dorchester woman over the Green Line train tracks, across the street, through traffic, and all the way down the block, pecking at her backside as she went.
“This is so scary,” Jean-Felix said, finally taking refuge inside Cambridge Eye Doctors in Brookline’s bustling Washington Square.”
Apparently some thirty years ago an effort was made to restore the wild turkey population in the western part of Massachusetts which is all rural. Once there was a good flock of these turkeys a few wise officials gathered some up to scatter them about the state where they bred happily and walked into town. It appears that they really, really like the urban thing and you can see from this fellow that he looks pretty dapper strolling down Commonwealth Avenue.
One woman apparently found eighteen of them in her garden. Someone else called the police to let them know a turkey ‘half the size of an elephant’ was walking down the street.
This is when it pays to wear specs. No need to be embarrassed when you make a dash for the optician’s shop.
I like the turkey attitude. This guy looks like he owns the street—and he’s just arrived in town! The poor dude has no idea that Thanksgiving’s just around the corner. Though if things keep going the way they are he might just be sitting down to count his blessings as he feasts on a roasted woman in specs with all the trimmings. Hmmm.
October 26th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
I’m sorry but this post just cracked me up. Here on the Cape we have a lot of turkeys, including a flock that likes to run back and forth across Route 6 in Truro, causing some pretty hairy traffic jams, expecially in the summer when they have their babies. I guess they can be pretty agressive and the thought of that woman walking through Boston with a turkey pecking at her backside fits right in with that. Funny as it seems it’s probably not fun to have it done to you. Still makes me laugh, though. The best stories you hear around here are about people that get trapped in their cars because they’re surrounded by turkeys looking in their windows and pecking at the glass. Thanks for the chuckle.
October 26th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Hey, Mary, hadn’t thought about getting trapped in the car! I think we might be in an Alfred Hitchcock movie in more ways than one. We have the Canada geese here too who have decided it’s just not worth flapping their wings to go that extra few hundred miles north come summer. And for some reason their favorite habitat seems to be traffic islands. Life is getting very curious!
October 28th, 2007 at 4:45 am
Wild turkeys are funny to watch. We’ve seen them on and off in our woods. My elderly father-in-law saw one sitting in a tree. He was convinced it was a hornets’ nest, so he returned with a can of spray. He certainly startled the turkey who was just resting on the limb. The turkey took off after my father-in-law, and chased him through the woods!