RBG Arboretum, Hamilton. ON. September 27, 2024. For many years I had it in for the Wild Turkey. Not the bird, it is fascinating in many ways, and I’ll come to that, but the name, specifically the adjective ‘wild’. Briefly, I think wild is needless and self-evident, serving only to distinguish it from plastic-wrapped Christmas carcasses. For all those years I boycotted ‘Wild Turkey”, suggesting Woodland Turkey or Northern Turkey as more suitable. No-one shared my passion on the topic. I gave up.
I had hardly started my transect this morning, when four Wild Turkeys emerged from a woodland edge and made a stately march-past, left to right, in front of me. They were in no hurry, just making their way and picking at the odd food item as they went. Here are 2 of them. 
There was ample time to admire them and ponder the folklore and stories that revolve around them. These are big birds, almost unbelievably so. One New Jersey morning, I came across a male turkey in full display mode with his admiring harem staying close, he was surely as large as an armchair! I wonder how those sad, starving and sea-sick pilgrim fathers of 1620 reacted at the sight of them; unimaginable feasts to people whose memories of table birds were probably limited to the Wood Pigeons of Europe.
Wild Turkeys are native to Ontario but were hunted to extirpation by 1910. Several attempts were made to reintroduce them but without success until about 30 years ago, since then they have gone from strength to strength. While abundant they do have predators, at night they fly strongly to roost in the upper level of woodlands.
The rest of my transect walk was rather uneventful lacking the surge of migrants that we hope for, although the song of a Pine Warbler reminded me a little of spring, but the Wild Turkeys were clearly My Birds of the Day.