Jan goes to physical therapy at least twice a week. She meets her therapist at an old hospital building in down town Monterey. The building is right on the edge of the historical adobe building district. The adobe buildings recreate the look and feel of life in the Mexican era of Monterey: cool indoor spaces, black wrought Iron hardware some with gardens others with courtyards now converted to coffee shops. It’s a lovely neighborhood. But for some reason there are two Turkeys who wander the outside of the old hospital.
This turkey wants in. Here he is unpuffing himself. I was intimidated to reach for my camera when he was in full display.
Wild turkeys up close are at the same time beautiful and scary. When not aroused a turkey reminds me of a velociraptor with a blue head, a lurid red wattle and long taloned claws. In a group they are called a gang or a rafter of turkeys, only if they are domesticated. Wild turkeys come in flocks. These two in downtown Monterey seem to be either wild or feral, because I don’t remember entering their cage when going to the hospital and I see no sign of anyone telling them what to do. Last week I found one turkey standing right in the middle of the front door, watching himself in the glass reflection and he was puffing himself up in full display… which is a pretty remarkable sight, their full plumage is finely detailed with many different patterns in different parts of their bodies.. They appear massive and all puffed up with short necks and colorful feathers fanned out from their posterior. Then when the display is over they become much more sleek with long snake like necks bobbing out over their feet with their wild ugly head bouncing on the end of the neck.
Native people advise human beings if they ever run into a bear to “Not run, don’t make a panicked sound and try to make yourself look as big as possible.” If you are wearing a coat hold it up above your head to seem more bulky. If you have to speak keep your voice low and remain dignified. This too the turkey seems to do. The only sound I heard was a low chugging, deep in the throat moaning sound.
I suppose the turkey blocking our entrance to the hospital was looking at his own reflection thinking he was looking at a competitor for a females attention and was puffing up to make the reflected turkey back down and eventually he did. And Jan was able to go in for her balance and strength excercises.
Hummingbirds in a group are called a “charm” of hummingbirds. Which is a lovely sounding name. But here too the match head sized little buggers can surprise you. Inside our little fenced in yard we have two hummingbird feeders which are getting a lot of action the last two weeks. What I’ve observed is I can’t go out in the yard, particularly if I’m wearing my red, Alaska Gold Panner’s hat, without getting dive bombed and barked at by what I’m suspecting is a male hummer. It appears the the male hummers are little muscular bundles of pure testosterone. Their bark sounds like a blast of air escaping the mouth at a percussive speed. If you could imagine a snipers rifle small enough for a hummingbird to fire, it would sound like the skull cracking bark of a male hummingbird. A lovely little bird hovered just below my hat brim and it barked. The bird was an emerald green and the bark seemed to contort the entire body up from its bejeweled belly out of its fighting chopstick face.
When the Spanish first came to north America they called these little birds, “Jewel birds” again… lovely. But I found the little buggers to be more aggressive and than jewell like. no matter where I sat in the yard I got yelled at by the little rascals. Kind of like being called out by a tiny little drunk in a tavern on St. Paddy’s day in New York. Irritating.
So here is what I learned this week. Males are vain and aggressive no matter their size.
Soft rain, hummingbirds
buzz the feeder all day long,
They are fussy children.
Here is a lovey and erotic poem by Pattiann Rogers about other aspects of male hummingbird behavior. HUMMINGBIRD: A SEDUCTION . Happy Valentines Day.
