TURKEY CALL!

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When I go for a walk around the town, I try to notice almost every "thing" that matters to me, like a bush of flowers or local people to greet good morning, just to make sure I maximize my walk with the touch of humanity. It takes a keen eye to observe these things, to know the sunlight hit you or the wind blew in another direction by the time you take your nth step on the road. Sometimes, weird things call you, and when I say weird, I mean odd to encounter. Just like these turkeys I passed by on my walk home, caged in a big fence and walking gracefully like princesses.

I was on my walk, busy looking at the street signs I often enjoy reading, when out of nowhere, a turkey call got my attention. My head, that was elevated to heaven, turned between 45-60 degrees left and right like a flexible geometric shape trying to find the spot where the sound came from. When I finally found them, with one peeping behind a malunggay tree, I received no welcome but their loudest sound ever made.

Before anything else, I have to share with you the sound they make so you understand why they really grabbed my ears to their fence. Thanks to link, I credit this video to them from their YouTube channel American Bird Conservancy.

"Pabo"is the Cebuano term for a domestic turkey, which is obviously the one I am featuring in this blog. I can only say turkey because I am not an expert on these animals, but for the sake of an educated guess, this one could be a Meleagris gallopavo species of turkey. I rarely see them here in our town because they need good spaces for their habitat and breeding, which is sometimes not possible in this urban town unless you have a farm behind your house. But look, someone got fortunate to have them here beside the road with a good square for these two. I thank them for making that silly sound of turkey that led me to learn more about them through researching.

Honestly, a turkey’s sound is an inside joke among Cebuanos. They would mimic the sound that pronounces like "loklokloklolok" and the folks would try to sound the same, which really has a corresponding nude term in Cebuano. But anyway, this beautiful creature really is a good investment when choosing farm animals to tend. They create more profit here than goats and chickens. And I hate to say this, but they are most bought because they taste best (although I feel guilty eating them, but I am not a vegetarian. It is just that I tried eating this in my uncle's house, and before they cooked the turkey, I had an hour spent with it that I was attached to him painfully, and hours after I saw myself enjoying its very meat??)

To give you basic information about turkeys, if you don't know anything about them aside from their sound, they are animals, large birds rather, with long legs, long necks, and a broad body with firm legs that could kick you in the ass. The turkeys I encountered have a largely white body and one with some darker feathering, with his/her back filled with black-colored feathers almost looking like a bunch of charcoal. A turkey's wings are rounded and seemingly short, although their tails can fan out wider than they look, especially when they are strutting.

Speaking of strutting, the white and black feathered one was doing it. Strutting occurs when a turkey spreads its feathers into a round or fan-shaped form while it puffs up its body. Same goes with ostriches that display their beautiful, vigorous patterns we often see when mating, courting a female, or performing.

One interesting thing I learned about strutting in our general zoology class is it is not only a courtship display but also an illusionary motion that serves as a defensive intimidation tactic against their rivals and makes them look larger and harder to track than they actually are.

Look at these intimidating turkeys, with its vibrant but eerie colors and a face that asks your deepest identity like a divine. The red pigments on their faces and the blue shadows around its eyes make it appear secretive and deep, as if it knows you for a long time. It is not in a literary sense, but whenever I look in their eyes, I feel a strong energy from them that asks my identity. Weird isn't it?

I don’t know if they are males or females or male and female, but I do know they are turkeys and I even believe they didn’t call me in that turkey call. I was just assuming it. I wonder how long they will live in that square and walk gracefully in circling motion. But anyway, I had to leave them alone because in the first place they don’t even know me, and the day has yet to start and long.

How did you find these turkeys? Are they interesting? Do you know any interesting facts about them? Let's discuss it in the comment section and I would love to learn from you.