Plains Rd. Burlington. ON. March 1st. 2021. I spent a couple of hours following a familiar but treacherously icy woodland trail on this wintery day. Not a bird did I see, not that it mattered, I always enjoy the variety of this walk along a valley edge and through a mature hardwood forest.
On my way home, I made a point of visiting that busy corner of town where I met the Suburban Turkey just a month ago. It was still there.
Suburban Turkey, how you have found your place in suburbia. This is a busy intersection with Esso on one corner and Royal Bank on another. There are traffic lights to control the flow of traffic, traffic that flows straight through, turns left and turns right in the familiar ballet that makes things orderly. Orderly until the turkey decides it’s time to take part.
I arrived today just as the turkey decided to come down from its roosting spot on the Esso sign, time for a little drink and a bit to eat. It found a trickle of melt water at the roadside and there was plenty of grain thoughtfully left for it by other residents. I watched as it sipped quietly, flicked at a few kernels of corn and decided to use the pedestrian crosswalk to cross the road, perhaps to go to the bank. Turkeys using crosswalks without heeding the ‘walk’ signal can cause difficulties. Cars stopped mid-turn, some moved ahead but could only wait, traffic lights changed as programmed but still no one moved. A driver got out of his car, walked towards the Turkey and gently ushered it back to the gas station, and then everything went back to the way it was.
After that, well…
I don’t often digress very far from the familiar My Bird of the Day track, but I want to share a discovery with you. It would take too long to explain our connection, but my friend Chris Taylor is someone you should know about, he lives in Norfolk, England. Although he spends some of his time as coxswain on a lifeboat rescuing mariners in distress he is also making a series of masterful videos, A Year on the Wild North Norfolk Coast, is about the seasons of life and wildlife in his little corner of England. The link above will take you to his most recent production, Winter. If nothing else enjoy it for his eye for a picture, it’ll enrich 15 minutes of your valuable time.