…and mac and cheese, and dressing and gravy, and shelley beans, and creamed corn, and cranberry sauce and some manner of dreadfully fattening dessert.
(Well now, what OTHER image would you expect on Thanksgiving week?)

There will indeed be turkey on many a Thanksgiving feast table come Thursday of this week. But not this one. He is a yard pet of my good friend Wilma Howell, who lives on C-C Ranch near my home. This fellow was the first turkey I’ve ever met in person (or in FEATHER?)…all my other acquaintances have been upon a Thanksgiving or Christmas feast table.

The wild turkey is the largest game bird in this part of the world and was so common and revered in the early days of our nation that Benjamin Franklin wanted to make it our national bird. Except for the elaborate feather display, turkeys are really rather ugly by most standards. This fellow is a wild turkey, distinguishable from the common domestic turkey found on feast tables by his dark feathers that serve as camouflage in his natural surroundings. The common feast turkey (domestic) has white feathers and weigh about double the weight of the wild turkey, and is too heavy for flight.

The globbed/mottled up flesh of the Tom turkey’s head changes color in a full range from white to deep shades of red when excited, alarmed or during courtship. These birds spend days foraging for nuts, seeds, berries and small insects, and their nights, in the low branches of trees. Tom turkeys (males) make the familiar gobbling sound and puff up an elaborate display of their feathers as they strut their stuff to attract females (much like the typical males of other species…heh).

The feast that gave birth to our modern Thanksgiving celebration was the Pilgrim’s harvest festival in 1621. It’s original purpose was in thanking God for having guided them safely on their journey to the new land and for having sustained them through several years of drought during subsequent years. Four soldiers sent out by General Bradford to hunt wild fowl returned with so many birds that it fed the entire village for a week following. A local Indian tribe of Wampanoags contributed 5 deer and some other common local supplies as a neighborly gesture to their peaceful Pilgrim neighbors.

And so the turkey’s doom was sealed. I would like to say that I’m far too compassionate a human being to eat animal flesh, but alas, I could not imagine a Thanksgiving feast without the traditional turkey centerpiece. What might really be disturbing to some, is that my African Grey parrot, Norton, looks as forward to the Thanksgiving turkey as the rest of the household. It’s generally the only time of year we roast a whole turkey (and we’re only able to do that because we buy enough groceries at Ingles in the weeks preceding Thanksgiving to get a FREE 10-14 lb frozen Butterball), thereby the only time of year that Norton gets to eat a turkey drumstick. She doesn’t just ‘gnaw’ the bone, the DEVOURS it, generally within about 20-30 mins.

I figure that if it’s okay for a BIRD to eat BIRD for Thanksgiving, surely I can do so with relatively clear conscience.

(Click on the preview above, and the thumbnail below, to pull up a full view of the pictures.)