Wild Turkeys

WATCHING FOR WILD TURKEYS

An Essay
By Izzy Sommers
For November, 2005
In Welland, Canada

I’d heard many things about the abundance of the Wild Turkey in the USA and how it was almost chosen over the Bald Eagle as the American National Bird. It would have been on all the government stationary and all the huge plaques on government buildings, as well as on all the money and speaker stands. I’ve actually seen one Wild Turkey on Interstate 90, between Buffalo, NY and Erie Pennsylvania, early one Saturday morning, about 4 years ago. Reader’s Digest’s BIRDS OF CANADA, ISBN 1-55363-032-7, published in China, latest edition 2004, describes the Wild Turkey, in text and pictures, on page 195 in the 684 page book. Optimistically, like the Bald Eagle and many other birds, they’re coming back from near extinction and are now protected from hunters. I’m hopeful to be seeing more of them in the future.

The tiny map shown of North America on that page, shows that one has a chance of sighting a Wild Turkey in the USA between the Atlantic Coast and the Rockies, between the Canadian and Mexican borders. This is despite the fact that the title of the book says, Birds of CANADA. Other small areas of land west of the American Rockies and south of the Mexican-American border are also indicated. Leamington Ontario’s Point Pelee and Lake Erie’s Pelee Island, famous for bird watchers from all over the Ontario, Canada, USA and the world, doesn’t seem to have Wild Turkeys. To be fair, a tiny area of land in British Columbia, east of the Rockies, at the border with the USA, and a minuscule nubbin of land of Eastern Ontario, between Kingston and Ottawa, at the border with the USA, are highlighted on the map, showing distribution of the bird.

I hesitated to guess that the book was indicating that there were Wild Turkeys of Another Sort, in Ottawa. However, in support of the book, I have seen such Wild Turkeys of Another Sort, in Ottawa. They gobble a lot, and often all at once. Sometimes they’re shown on television, especially lately, when there seems to be a territorial dispute going on for control of land all across Canada. In this area, on Elm Street, between Port Colborne and Welland, at night, they drive, without lights, flying at 120 kpm, on the wrong side of the road. Perhaps I should write to the publishers and get them to include this data. Perhaps, they can put a highlight, in the Niagara Peninsula, in Toronto and Ottawa, and elsewhere in Canada, where gobbles and flies, this special variant of the Wild Turkey. I believe it has also been increasing in numbers. Thus we can eventually see more of them in Canada and don’t have to go to the USA, where there are already plenty of them.

THE END