Sometimes you’re relaxing on your couch, checking your email and seeing what’s shaking online, and you look out through your open blinds, out your window, into your complex on a nice warm day, and you see . . . turkeys.
Let me rewind a little and explain, for while many may be shocked by such a sight of these unusual and rarely seen creatures, I for one am not. For over a year now — pretty much since I moved into my current residence — from time to time I have paid witness to these strange-looking animals. Most often they are found in the nearby Maidu Park, which has large amounts of inaccessible land teeming with wildlife and turkeys. Except these turkeys consider themselves royalty of this terrain, their kingdom, and freely walk wherever they please. I have even spotted them on a center divide of a busy thoroughfare. How they manage to get across the road without being hit by a car, who knows. But then they are royalty, so perhaps all who cross their paths stop and allow them to pass without question. Or maybe they use those small wings and fly a little (see below for further proof). Earlier this week when I left for work I found these two rapscallions along with a veritable hoard of smaller turkeys, likely offspring. It was quite the party traveling into the apartment complex.
So when I gazed upon a pair of unusual turkey heads peaking in my window, I wasn’t too thrown off guard. Naturally I had to investigate.
But I wasn’t the only one who decided that these turkeys needed further scrutiny. Once the door was open, Lily was out checking up on them, for there is nothing that occurs within the environs of my apartment that is not first vetted and then approved (rarely) or denied (most cases) by this most critical of cats. While she tolerates humans — for their petting — and thinks little of noisy dogs, and hates any other feline she sees, looking to end it; on this day she decided to abide by these fowl, encroaching upon them without eliciting much of a reaction, as well as showing an impressive level of indifference herself.
There was one tense moment when a face-off occurred, as it seemed Lily just wanted to hang out with these turkeys, but they soon turned tail and went on their merry way, much to the chagrin of my cat.
And later, as I left to go out, I saw a most unusual sight (after this earlier one): a turkey on the roof of a two-story apartment, balancing there, then noticing it had been spotted by yours truly, and I heard it’s hobbly scraggling down the other side of the roof, and then bursting sound of flapping wings, and the next moment it was safely ensconced high up in a redwood tree. For all I know, the strange bird is still there now.
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