Sunday, March 02, 2008

The Brave

Yesterday we went for a drive in the hills above San Jose. We drove along the west edge of the Calaveras Reservoir -- which in its bucolic beauty you would not imagine to be close to our urban bubble -- and started down toward habitation.. The road had some twists and humps, and I spotted there on ahead....

I spotted something, a silhouette coming into view and then disappearing. I knew what it looked like, but since I doubted that's what it was I said nothing. Eydie wondered if it was a cow. As we got closer, I kept discounting what it seemed to be, but finally there was no denying that what we saw was....

A wild turkey in full display, wings down, tail feathers spread, neck back.

Then we saw why. His harem of a dozen hen turkeys had apparently wandered down the steep bank on the right side of the road to sample the grass up against the fence on the left side of the road. Our tom got (I guess) the idea that loitering so close to a country road was unwise, and he decided to "man up," challenging and (hopefully) discouraging what might come their way.

I suppose. He was certainly strutting and posturing. We stopped and got out the camera, the one with the dead batteries in it.

I put on our hazard blinkers, and we sat there for a while looking at the turkeys. Then a car approached from the opposite direction. It stopped, but perhaps its appearance was too much for the females. One by one they scampered back up the bank on the right, at which point the tom furled and left the road, last man out, no female turkey left behind.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You say you are sick of irony, and yet a wild turkey giving expression to a natural instinct is ridiculed as "manning up," as if this male manifestation has somehow become ridiculous in this feminized age. Skirts and dresses for all next? That would certainly be a natural extension of the purging of the Havard president for suggestion there might be a difference between the sexes.

....J.Michael Robertson said...

I speak what I see. When McCain gets in touch with his inner turkey, I say so.

Anonymous said...

Sigma Phi@ USF (the REAL one}} says this bloggin OLD dude wud liek everhyone totaly partying on Cadtro St.

Anonymous said...

Man we were so hammered when we wrote this.,

....J.Michael Robertson said...

The important thing is that you understand that someone might have formed an unfavorable image of you as a result.