Southeast Calgary residents have fallen in love with a feathered wanderer that’s somehow found itself in Ramsay backyards over the past few weeks.
That feathered friend is none other than a wild turkey.
According to Ramsay Community Association vice-president Erin Joslin, the bird, who many are now calling Turk, arrived in the community nearly a month ago and has been the talk of the town, gaining so much attention that there’s even a Facebook page for it.
“He just showed up one day and someone snapped a picture of him and it’s kind of continued since then,” she said Wednesday. “So it’s become a kind of regular thing where everybody has turkey sightings.”
Those turkey sightings are being logged on a Facebook page that’s continuously gaining more followers as visitors share photos and videos of the turkey doing everything from taking shelter from the rain under someone’s house to crossing the road in a marked crosswalk.
“We’ve just embraced it,” Joslin said.
“It’s kind of a unique thing that we have in our community right now. He hangs up on Scotsman’s Hill, so a lot of people head up the hill to try and find the turkey or spot the turkey, so it’s kind of an unofficial welcomed pet, currently.”
Recent documentation of the animal shows it standing in a cemetery, which Joslin said is across a busy street and a little outside community bounds. Another shows the bird atop a roof walking around.
Joslin said Turk — a name that came about after an unofficial online poll — has some favourite houses he frequents, some of which will set out birdseeds for him to munch on.
“The community’s getting to expect him around here but there’s still, you’ll see a reaction: ‘Oh my God I just saw a turkey up on the hill!'” Joslin explained.
She said community members aren’t concerned for the bird, which they didn’t expect would stay this long, but that may change if it’s still around when the Calgary Stampede starts and the area sees an uptick in traffic.
The biggest question on everyone’s mind is: where did this feathered friend come from?
“Nobody knows,” Joslin said. “Just one day, all of a sudden we had a turkey.
“Speculation is that maybe he came from Lilydale but I’m not sure if that has any merit.”
Joslin said community speculation has led many to come to the consensus “based on observations and characteristics” that Turk is a male turkey, though that hasn’t been confirmed.
“It’s kind of brought, you know something fun and positive to the community amongst all the other things that a community is always dealing with,” Joslin said. “Our turkey is pretty entertaining.”