Here she is, bold as brass, a little over a week before the holiday on which millions of her co-speciesists will be roasted or, for the brave,
deep-fried, calmly resting on a well-traveled footpath in a busy park in downtown Manhattan. I first
spotted her (at the time, I was unaware of her name, and insufficiently steeped in turkey lore to perceive her gender) shortly before Thanksgiving three years ago. I
saw her again in March of 2007. In a comment on that post,
ChickenUnderwear pointed me to a
New York Times City Room blog post post in which Sarah Grimké Aucoin, director of the New York City Urban Park Rangers, gives her history and name, including its provenance (Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott, who wandered Battery Park in her episodes of mental distress). I don't know the average, non-Thanksgiving threatened, turkey life span, but I wish Zelda many more years of wandering the park.
mmmm...turkey.
ReplyDeletewild turkeys are everywhere in CT. everywhere. i see 'em on the side of the highway, wandering through the suburbs. my first house in manchester, i had a flock pass through the yard to eat all the new grass seed.
haven't seen any around the new place, but i'm sure they are about. i have seen the nesting pair of hawks in my back yard, teaching their offspring how to eat squirrels (i don't see many squirrels; the chipmunks tend to do better). the juvenille occassionally alighted upon my deck railing too. have heard, but not seen the local owls and coyote. nor have i seen any deer, just evidence of their passing.
i do miss city life, but there are compensations.