Turkeys Foraging in the Morning, How Refreshing

Ah, I witnessed sweet justice on a morning last week.
A cat that wanders the neighborhood terrorizing and scavenging wild birds saw something that made it crouch and cower: Nine wild turkeys strutting past down the middle of the street. No way was that cat about to attack those venerable birds as they stepped deliberately on their morning rounds. They were a sight to behold, more interesting by far than the news of the stock market or recent political mudslinging in the daily paper.
Turkeys are not really new to our neighborhood, but their numbers are increasing about a mile from the center of the county seat. They’ve been spotted along Dias Creek Road (C.R. 612) near the electric company’s high-power lines in increasing numbers.
Two weeks from today other turkeys will be on the minds, and in the ovens, around the nation. They will be central to the menu on most tables on Thanksgiving Day. Once gnawed and devoured with piles of other luscious food, those grand entrees will then morph into all sorts of things in the following week: sandwiches, salad, soup, pot pies, casseroles and, fodder for wild cats. Some may linger, their wishbones wrapped in aluminum foil, and be placed upon a Christmas tree, and then broken, to see whose wish will come true.
On late summer evenings, as darkness approached, and my grandchildren rode their bikes around our cul-de-sac, they were amazed to see a flock of those wild turkeys, maybe 20 or more, nibbling their way around a neighboring yard.
They are a stately bird, something to behold with their red heads, as they seem to follow their leader.
If old Ben Franklin would have had his way shortly after the Revolution, we would likely have turkeys embossed on coins and flags, since he advocated making the turkey the national bird, not the bald eagle.
Franklin, the definition of a curmudgeon of old Philadelphia, was apparently dead set against putting the eagle in first place as a national emblem.
“I wish that the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of the country,” Franklin wrote. “He is a bird of bad moral character, he does not get his living honestly, you may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing hawk, and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to its nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes it from him,” he continued.
Old Ben wrote that the eagle was “a coward” afraid of a kingbird, “not bigger than a sparrow” who attacks him boldly.”
“He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest…of America…For a truth, the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable firs, and withal a true original native of America…a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards, who should presume to invade his farmyard with a red coat on,” Franklin wrote.
True eagle lovers know that Mr. Franklin was not 100 percent accurate in his assessment that the eagle is a coward. While they are often chased by smaller, fearless birds defending their nests from predatory actions of the eagle, the eagle is still a stately bird.
There may come a day when turkeys will be numerous and a pain for homeowners in these parts, but for now, it’s heartwarming to see at least one type of bird on the seeming rebound.
When you see those wild birds lazily seeking food on their daily sojourn, think just how fortunate you are to be able to see them “on the hoof,” and not just in impersonal frozen 18 and 23-pound blocks in the supermarket.
Country living has its high points, seeing a wild turkey is one of them.