Where the WIld Things Are

The other day, I was talking to one of fellow condo-ers, and we were bemoaning the fact that, with two major gut renos going on on our block, there are a lot more trash-marauding rats skulking around at night. Not that they were living in the buildings, but the drilling and pounding has disturbed some rat burrows. Plus those dumpsters full of debris that don’t get dumped often enough seem to attract rats as well.

We were discussing a rat-related issue particular to our building. Namely, some of the folks who live here keep ignoring our “asks” that they take their garbagey trash out the morning of trash day, not the night before.

There are plenty of mornings when I’ve taken my trash out at dawn, only to find that there are torn trash bags and banana peels, egg shells, and avocado peels and pits strewn about. Joe is no stranger to picking up OPG (Other People’s Garbage), either. But he told me that he’d been out back late one night and come across a couple of racoons going after avocado leavings. (Please don’t ask why we don’t have sturdy wheeled trash containers that close tight. Let’s leave it that there are a number of reasons why they just wouldn’t work in our building, unless we lined up a live-in super other than me or Joe.)

Anyway, here I was thinking that most of our downtown Boston wild things are of the rat variety. Or pigeons. Or squirrels. Or hawks (which are fun to see). Or the beast that, to me, is right up there with rats: the Canada goose, No, not those who were Canada Goose down jackets. They wearers are plenty annoying, but at least they don’t leave their scat on every single walkway along the Esplanade.

So, we now have racoon gangs to worry about.

I was so focused on the rat and racoon thing, I almost missed an article in The Boston Globe on the wild thing that has become the bane of everyone’s existence in these parts: the wild turkey.

Kenda Carlson feels a little ridiculous walking everywhere while clutching a large golf umbrella — especially when there’s no rain in sight and more sunny spring days on the horizon.

But after the 35-year-old was aggressively attacked by a group of wild turkeys in Cambridge recently, she knows it could be her best defense against the feathered animals.

“It’s the one thing I think I can do to make myself feel a bit more comfortable,” Carlson said. “I heard that the motion of opening up the umbrella in the face of a turkey might be enough to scare it away.” (Source: Boston Globe)

But wait, there’s more: poor Kenda is seven months pregnant. And she’s now had two way too close encounters with these turkey bad boys. In one of those incidents, a half dozen of these thugs nipped at her legs, causing bruising and welts.

Over the past several years, we’ve experienced a major invasion of the wild turkeys. They’re stalking folks, they’re stopping traffic, and sometimes they’re actually attacking folks like poor Kenda Carlson.

Oh, sometimes the situations are a bit amusing. Like last month’s episode in NH in which a big old Tom Turkey spread his tail feathers and stood in front of a line of cars until his entire coterie had crossed the road. (And don’t ask me why they crossed the road. You know yourself it’s to get to the other side.)

But mostly turkeys an un-fun nuisance.

On her day of turkey terror, Carlson was surrounded by a good-sized turkey gang. She tried “waving her arms, yelling, and kicking at the turkeys — anything to get them to leave her alone.”

She was rescued by several neighbors, one armed with a broom to whisk the turkeys away.

Based on her experience, Carlson came up with a piece of advice: don’t make eye contact with them.

As the number of incidents has grown, the state has responded by posting advice. It:

…offers tips online to prevent conflicts with turkeys,” including trying to scare or threaten them by making loud noises, swatting them with a broom, or spraying them with a hose.

Good to know, but if you’re out and about, you’re not likely to have a broom or a hose with you. You do have your lungs. And Carlson has that golf umbrella.

I’ve never been attacked, but I have been stalked when making my way to my sister’s in the suburb of Brookline.

A posse of turkeys have been plaguing her neighborhood for years, and a couple of them hang out at the nearest T-stop.

I’ve been followed by these bad boys, and looked up and down by their cronies when I walked by them while they were lurking about.

They are big. And they are creepy.

Even without getting the advice from anyone, I knew better than to make eye contact.

DMEC (Don’t Make Eye Contact) is something of a family motto. It’s mostly used with reference to people you see in public who might not be stable. Or who might be out and out hostile. DMEC. And now, it seems, we must apply this wisdom to turkeys.

Most of the turkeys I’ve seen have been in Brookline.

But last year, while taking an early evening stroll, a fellow I past on Chestnut Street gestured for me to look up. There, perched in a tree, was a wild turkey. Up to no good, I’m quite sure.

So if you want to know where the wild things are, they’re in downtown Boston, too. And they’re not just rats and pigeons.

What next?