Street Turkey

Street Turkey | East Wenatchee, WA | May 2020

Our new friend ignores fences, taunts dogs, gobbles gardens and struts the streets with gangsta swagger. It notes our presence with an upnod — “Yo, homie” — but otherwise keeps its beak to the ground. One neighbor says it’s a wild turkey sent to bedevil cats. Another claims it’s a domestic bird we should fatten for Thanksgiving. Mostly, I’ve admired its composure — alert, confident — as it makes its rounds. Huge, it perches on the rim of a bird bath that needs refilling and flaps: “Who I gotta peck around here to get a drink?”

[One more week: This blog’s extended run, a two-month quarantine experiment, will end on May 31. Please stay safe as you emerge from isolation into this new, re-ordered world.]