Friday, March 17, 2006
Turkeys in the mist
Our office is besieged by turkeys, and I mean that in the most literal way.
We are in a small office park, with a small patch of woods behind us, and a larger patch of reservation land not far away. This seems to be habitat enough for a flock of a couple of dozen wild turkeys, seen here nesting in the trees between the parking lot and the road. (Photo courtesy Harvey Cohen.)
Look at one of these turkeys up close – which is easy to do since they apparently have no fear of humans – and you get it about birds being little, recent dinosaurs. They are truly saurian of mien. Aggressive of character, too. Adult males stand about 3 or 4 feet high, and there are many stories of turkey attacks on joggers, mail carriers, etc. I came out to the parking lot once and a couple of them were hanging around my car. I would not have been surprised had one said “Yo, man. Nice car. Be a shame if anything happened to such a nice car, wouldn’t it?”
Civilization doesn't seem to bother them. The office is not exactly in the wilderness - we're less than 10 miles from downtown Boston as the turkey flies. (I watched a couple fly into the roosting tree a couple of days ago, and they are surprisingly agile fliers for their size.) Not only are they in the suburbs, but there was a wild turkey living in Cambridge a couple of years ago. We saw this guy on my neighbor’s front porch at about the same time, and we’re in a pretty urban neighborhood. I think we need to adjust this idea that nature is something that is out there, and we are something that is in here.
