Our new semi-rural life in Carlisle, MA has brought many surprises some welcome, some not so welcome. One particularly delightful and comical surprise was the abundance of free range turkeys in the area. These are not the jolly round birds of white plumage we see walking about in farms dedicated to raising them or on the news around Thanksgiving; these birds are serious! They come out of the woods behind our property hop/flutter over our stone wall and proceed to walk across our yard like they own the place. Typically the crew is one or two Toms and 4 or 5 females. There is definitely a hierarchy in place here. These Toms strut and they are ready to display their glorious feathers to anyone who is watching.

One particularly amusing moment a couple of weeks ago involved a confrontation with a vehicle. My mother-and-law was visiting, drove her car up our long dirt drive but came to a halt when she found a line of rather large turkeys crossing in front of her. Stopped in our driveway, she waited for them to pass, but the lead male was not pleased with her trespass and proceeded to confront her and her car. She honked the horn, tried to edge the car along but the more she persisted the more indignant it became. After five minutes or so of this he was down right hostile! Initially, my husband Kevin, myself and the kids were all watching from a window in the house, but soon Kevin went out to “rescue” his mother; although I must say at this point the only one not laughing was the bird - the sight was hard to describe, but I’ll try. The male turkey saw his reflection in the car finish and challenged what he perceived to be the hostile mirror image. He started pecking at the car, Kevin’s mother rolled down the window for a moment only to have him draw his neck up to its full height and and stare right at her…at this point the window was back up and he glared at her through the glass. Kevin finding this whole episode absurdly funny was stalking the animal around the car trying to get a photo. I, watching the whole scene unfold from the house window, see my husband tracking the bird and it, in turn, circling the car to get Kevin! My girls and I shouted an alert from the peanut gallery, prompting them both to speed up their mutual pursuit…in the end the bird stood down. It was quite a test of wills and a real first for all of us, welcome to the country!