“Turkeys are peacocks that have really let themselves go.”
- Kristen Schaal
The other day, Kendra and I saw 30 wild turkeys in a field near where we live. That's a lot of turkeys. We have no shortage around here. There's a clearing in the woods behind our house where I keep a salt block and feed the deer so they won't come up and eat our plants and shrubs, Ha,Ha.
Every so often several turkey hens show up out there pecking around. They're fun to watch. More fun still is when a young tom shows up hoping to get a date. It's amusing to see him fan his tail feathers and strut about. The hens seem completely unimpressed and go on with having their breakfasts. The poor tom eventually folds things up and wanders back into the timber. It's a little sad watching him strike out with the ladies like that. Somebody must be scoring, though, because sometimes the hens have a brood of chicks with them.
Some wild turkey fun facts:
*They don't look like it, but wild turkeys can fly at 55 MPH if needed, and males can run at 25 MPH.
*Groups of turkeys are known by any number of names: “crop”, “dole”, “gang”, “posse” and “raffle.”
*A turkey's vocabulary includes 28 distinct sounds. (Cats have about 100, dogs,10)
*Wild turkeys sleep in trees.
*The turkey was considered a god in Aztec culture. They held two annual religious festivals in their honor.
Turkeys haven't received much love when it comes to music. Birds in general are popular in song: blackbirds, bluebirds, doves, sparrows, eagles, robins, mockingbirds, larks, hummingbirds, nightingales, even an albatross, but turkeys, not so much.
There's one exception.
As I've mentioned before, when I was a teen in the midwest, REO Speedwagon was a very popular band. This was before they became a punchline and drifted into the land of schmaltzy easy listening dentist office waiting room goo. Through the 1970s they were a non-stop touring, true rock and roll outfit. I saw them plenty of times to know. Their lead guitar player was a guy named Gary Richrath. He was one of my guitar heroes. He had it all, a good-lookin' guy with monster chops and natural charisma. If you were creating the prototype for “rock and roll guitarist” in a laboratory, he's what you'd end up with.
Gary was cool enough to talk turkey with his guitar: