Wild Turkey Chase

Wild Turkey at Disney Carribean Beach Resort

Two days after Thanksgiving, a wild turkey chased Donald and me at Disney World.

I went to get breakfast one morning at Disney’s Caribbean resort. I heard a loud bird noise and thought it was a Sandhill Crane. A short one, but my vision is bad. Approaching, I recognized that it was a tom turkey. I wanted a photo of him for my Instagram account, so we slowed slowly, and he didn’t shy away from us.

We kept our distance, respecting his wildness as I snapped some photos and a short video. I recognized the bird’s movements indicated he was fascinated with Donald, and it was mutual; after all, Donald is a bird dog.

As I started moving Donald away, Tom kept following. He seemed to keep his distance. However, I remembered a story of a Turkey attacking a man. It was a strange story. The man lived in the woods with the turkey and considered it his brother. He knew the turkey from its hatching. No judging here, but eventually, the turkey’s hormones kicked in and he kicked the crap out of that man. They have spurs and can jump and attack. Being chased by wild turkeys is a thing.

Neither of us wanted to keep our backs to the bird so we kept turning around. I could not effectively see the bird with the short amount of time I had with my head turned.

My fear was if we went into the building the bird would follow us and endanger others such as children.

From out of nowhere a man in a red shirt comes by on a bicycle and rides between us and the bird hoping to scare him. I stop and turn and the man tries again. He told me to go into the building and he would take care of the bird. I grabbed Donald’s harness and gave him a couple of forwards and he dutifully led me into the building.

My breakfast was ready for pickup but my heart was racing. That bird scared me. I was afraid of him hurting Donald. I did not realize how dependent I had become on Donald, and thought of not having Donald around scared me.

While I was packing up my breakfast, the man in the red shirt approached me. He said he wanted to know if I was OK. He also wanted to tell me the bird had been chased away, and it was safe to go outside again. His name was Luke and he worked at the recreation department int eh Caribbean Beach resorts.

As I walked outside one of the doormen let me know that turkey has been here since he was a little bird, but he didn’t like dogs!

A policeman later stopped me and said he saw what happened and it was crazy. The turkey chasing us.

In less than two months, Donald has become indispensable to my life. It is amazing how quickly we can change and don’t even realize what has happened. While we were being chased, I was afraid of the bird and Donald getting into a tussle with Donald being injured. What would I do while he healed? Change happens to us every day and we don’t even realize it is happening. What change has happened in your life that you haven’t realized because it happened so slowly?