A Respectable Bird

I am sure the first wild turkey I saw generated as much surprise and delight as a bear does today strolling across our driveway. I spent the initial portion of my life in Wilton, Connecticut, which was very rural then (my father waited for the train to New York each morning with less than fifty other commuters around him), and there was not a hint of gobble-gobble in the woods or fields around us. It would have been as likely for an Albatros to fly overhead.

Well, I nearly ran over half a dozen turkeys with the truck this week, picking my way past gaggles of them as I traveled home from the market a mere three miles away. They gather along the shoulder of the road, you know, and a few will dash for the opposite side as you approach. Another dozen were leisurely pecking their way down the side of our driveway when I pulled in. This is the flock that lives with us, in and around our property. We have watched the poults grow up. My wife, Marcia, has kept count of them, more-or-less, monitoring their survival. And they seemed to have survived well, all of them; it has been a bumper year for turkeys.

So where did all the turkeys go once upon a time? Five minutes of research says they were hunted away, popular forever as food because of a diet rich in nuts and seeds. Back in an era when everyone may have had a shotgun leaning against the front porch rail, hunting could have substantially reduced the turkey population. I can tell you today, though, our friends in Monadnock who are avid turkey hunters will need only a net.

Legend has it that Ben Franklin advocated for the turkey as our national symbol. You have heard this, probably. It implies that turkeys were in good supply at the country’s founding. But Franklin’s advocacy for the turkey is fake news, unfortunately (all fake news being unfortunate, even turkey news). According to History.com, he was part of the committee given charge of designing the national seal, but early proposals derailed, and it was not until later that the Continental Congress settled on the bald eagle. Franklin lamented the choice because he felt the eagle was a “bird of bad moral character.” A scoundrel, in his opinion, a poacher and scavenger, “too lazy to fish for himself.” In contrast, the turkey was an American original and a “much more respectable bird,” he wrote.

Concerning bald eagles, the population next door to us on Lake Nubanusit seems to be doing very well. They visit our small pond regularly, and while we see them scavenging like crows along the road, and it is clear the loons detest them, they fish very well and make it look easy.

Quick story: not too long ago, we were paddling our canoe on the pond nearby another with two fellows who had been out fishing all morning. Around lunchtime, the resident loons made us aware of a bald eagle circling above. The loons are always the first to shout, “EAGLE!” Perhaps attracted to the fishermen’s canoe, the eagle made a couple of low approaches, swooped down just off their port bow and – splash – hit the water, and with giant wings beating, lifted-off carrying a large squirming fish. Then, it arched gracefully upwards and away to a tall white pine on the shore to enjoy. When the action was over, one of the two fishermen in the neighboring canoe called to us, “He did that just to spite us!”

The first hints of fall are here. The birds, except the loons, do not wake us up in the morning. The robins and hummingbirds are gone. The raptors are on their way. The trees are starting to change color, and temperatures at night dip into the low forties. I am back to wearing sweaters at night and in the early morning. At this point, what is left still growing in the garden will not mature and ripen, so in the next couple of weeks, we will turn it back into the soil and cover it with straw. I take the snowblower to the small engine shop for its annual check-up this afternoon. Afterward, we will come back to split and stack more wood.

As a friend used to say, “It’s down to you and the turkeys,” referring to last call at the bars. Very well. Winter will be here before we know it. Last call for nuts and berries. We will stand with the turkeys. They are respectable birds.