turkey!

[redbird]

One of the neighborhood wild turkeys flew up to a branch that's at or a little above eye-level from our kitchen and study windows, meaning 25 or 30 feet above the ground, and stayed there for five or ten minutes.

When cattitude saw the turkey, he assumed it would only stay a moment. Instead, it stood there a while, looking around in different directions, long enough that we thought it might settle in for the rest of the day, if not overnight. I don't know what it was looking for, or waiting for -- maybe company? -- but it left after long enough that we both got a good long look at it, and were able to point it out to one of our cats.

Turkeys are ground-feeding birds, so whatever it was looking for, it wasn't lunch.

Comments

Re: as god is my witness

[redbird]

I don't think there are any (extant) flightless birds native to North American. (Wikipedia's list of flightless or possibly flightless birds includes a few waterbirds native to Central or South America.)

As a side note, cattitude pointed out to me that Canada geese are about the same size as turkeys, and mute swans (introduced) are larger -- but neither species look like turkeys beyond the "yes this is a bird" bodyplan.