Portent

I have often found birds to be portentous. I remember seeing a great blue heron fly over the day I moved to Connecticut in 1981. That character has shown up again and again at significant moments in my life. My daughter has since taken on the great blue as an omen of good as well.

And there are the recurring "visits" from the purple finches that I have found to represent my sister-in-law who passed away in 1990. The first time I'd ever heard one sing was when it sat outside my window on the day she died.

So yesterday morning I didn't know what to make of the turkey who flapped and flopped up into a tree in our back yard. From a practical perspective, he appeared to have been fleeing a cranky rival who kept squawking on ground below. But it was still an odd sight.

Our hero stayed up there for 15-20 minutes until the rival wandered off, then he very unceremoniously fell out of the tree; flapping and flopping down through the branches until he landed with a FWUMP! and just walked away.

I guess sometimes a bird is an omen, and sometimes a big, dumb turkey in a tree is just a big, dumb turkey in a tree.