A flash of feathers and a fluttering of brown and gray alerted me to the presence of a large creature right across the street from our brownstone in Boston. It was much too large to be a pigeon or squirrel (both regular denizens of the street) and soon enough a head popped up, then went down, then popped back up again behind a car, and as it traversed the sidewalk I saw it was a turkey. More incredible were the four or five baby turkeys waddling in its wake (turklings?) How this turkey family came to be living across the street from me in the middle of a metropolis is a mystery. There must have been a nest in the shaded little square of bushes, and since I’m told turkeys are highly territorial (kids have been attacked while straying into their supposed territory near school bus stops) I don’t see how one would make a nest on a relatively-well-tread street.
Yet there it was. There they all were. Against all odds and reason, they kept to their corner while curious and amused onlookers whipped out their phone cameras and aimed for the best shot. I watched from the safety of our second floor vantage point, puzzling out what circumstances could have brought them to Braddock Park.
In addition to listening about their rumored territoriality, I heard that they were dumb as rocks. Some are so stupid that they reportedly look up at the sky when it’s raining, open their beaks, and drown themselves. I suppose the validity of that is as suspect as their vicious territorial nature. One never knows quite what to believe these days. We watched them a little longer before leaving for a show; the neighborhood children were transfixed and every passer-by paused in befuddled delight. Turns out turkeys make the people come together.
The next morning we looked for them again. Some of the neighbors were looking too, but the turkeys had disappeared. I saw the nosier of them poking around in the little garden, trying to prod anything to come out, but there was no one there. Maybe something got them in the night – a raccoon or possum or dog. Or maybe they had decided they’d had enough of city life and took off to somewhere more rural. More likely it was the work of humans. We’ve always been the most destructive species.
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