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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

LARGE BIRDS BEHAVING BADLY

I was driving to work this morning using a shortcut between Route 139 in Holbrook
and Route 37 on the Braintree/Holbrook line when I had my second encounter with
wild turkeys on that road.

The first encounter was four or five years back when I was wondering why traffic was
backed up at a four way intersection. When I finally reached the stop sign, I discovered
the problem was a turkey wandering haphazardly around from one side of the road
to the other. Of course, none of the drivers wanted to hit the foolish thing so it was a
matter of waiting for it to move to the other side of the road. When it was my turn, the
turkey actually stopped by my car window and looked at me as if it was waiting for
a handout. I had nothing to give it, and besides, it's not wise to encourage this sort
of behavior in birds. Sparrows already sit on car hoods at McDonalds begging for
pieces of rolls and french fries. I draw the line at turkeys, since they're larger and would
leave considerably larger....mementoes...on the hood.

Today, I'm not sure what it was I witnessed. There were two adult turkeys and five
chicks (turklets?) crossing the road this time. Now, I'm not an expert or a farmer
so I couldn't tell if they were a male and female. Wild male turkeys that look like
the ones in Thanksgiving decorations are apparently not common. Perhaps it was
two hens and their hatchlings on a play date? If so, were they playing some game
teaching bad behavior involving stalling traffic which would lead to the chicks being
able to wander around four way intersections without getting killed when they reached adulthood?

So, there's my post for the day. Nothing genealogy related, but I couldn't resist a
chance to talk turkey.

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