Today when I went out for my lunch break, there striding past the front foor of the building were four magnificent wild turkeys. They’re bigger than I thought they were - I’d seen them in the wild before, but only at a distance, and only while out on vacation far from home.
I’m sure that there are dopers out there who see this kind of thing every day, but it’s not something you expect here in the middle of suburban New Jersey. We get deer all the time, but wild turkeys are pretty rare.
Just thought that was cool. Hope they don’t get run over - there’s a lot of car and truck traffic around here.
Once I was hiking with a friend and one came hurtling out of the woods right at me. They are indeed huge and make a lot of noise when flying and I came close to killing myself throwing myself onto the ground. And my friend came close to killing himself laughing at me.
I was visiting a friend in Buffalo–right in the city–and three wild turkeys flew in and landed on his front lawn. It was Thanksgiving too, but he’s a vegetarian. I guess they figured they’d be safe there.
I see them all the time in the countryside of the peninsula here in the bay area, northern California. I saw a cool thing on a hunting show once: when trying to locate their roosting tree in the evening, a hunter makes a loud cawing or hooting noise. The turkeys will “shock gobble” immediately afterwards. When we drive in the country and see a flock close to the road, I’ll honk the horn once and all the toms in the flock will immediately all gobble simultaneously. Funny!
And I think they’re cool, too. Big, beautiful, shiny black birds.