TURKULES FOR PRESIDENT 2024

November 26, 2023 4:57 AM

"Picture seeing this turkey. He's, like, magnificent. Like, he's huge. And there's a tranq dart sticking out of him, and he's just walking around with it."

My god, do I want Turkules swag.

posted by Kitteh (31 comments total)

Look, as a matter of law accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt. All these turkeys being pardoned? They know what they did.
posted by mhoye at 5:03 AM on November 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

No fowl deeds, just poultry misdemeanors.
posted by zamboni at 5:26 AM on November 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

My wife is a site manager for elections and one of the locations she was in had a wild turkey that was scaring away some of the voters. It was a small community college and it seems people had been feeding it so it naturally assumed that anyone pulling up to vote would do that as well. More than one person simply stayed in their car and just left without voting. So she called the police, who showed up with a small bucket of food (this was not the first turkey call they had responded to) and lured the turkey back into the woods away from the school building.

As the quote in the title says, they're big birds, startlingly so if you've never seen one up close. I don't blame any of the folks who simply skedaddled when one ran up to their car.
posted by tommasz at 6:02 AM on November 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

so to be clear that’s turkules like hercules not polycules?
posted by dis_integration at 6:05 AM on November 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

We have a pretty good-sized turkey flock that lives in our area and hangs out in our yard sometimes. They are indeed quite large and the toms can get aggressive. Not anywhere near as scary as geese but way fucking creepier when you're walking in the woods and start to hear Turkey Noises(TM) from every direction.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:18 AM on November 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

They disappeared him somewhere in Wharton State Forest.
posted by pracowity at 6:19 AM on November 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

dis_integration yes:

He picked up several local nicknames, including "Cluck Norris" and "Gobbles McFeathers," but Turkules — which rhymes with Hercules — is the one that really stuck.

posted by achrise at 6:25 AM on November 26, 2023

I once came around the corner of a building and was confronted at very close range by a large male turkey in full display. Glancing around, I noticed a pair of females eyeing us dubiously. “Look,” I said “they seem nice but not my type, I’ll be in my way, and you get on with any turkey business you’ve got.” I then realized that he’d been caught by his reflection in a nearby window, so I edged away from him and he went back to trying to intimidate himself. Everyone was happy, I guess.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:33 AM on November 26, 2023 [18 favorites]

Our mailman when we lived closer to the river carried a big stick because the turkey flock would follow him through his appointed rounds, and once in a while one of them would get a wild hair and pick on him. While I was walking my dog one day I saw one of the turkeys jump up and try to kick the mailman in the back, and in response he took a swing at the bird -- I don't think either connected, but my dog and I psychically agreed we should go see if we could help and headed that way. One of the other turkeys apparently sent up the "dog alarm" and all bird heads whipped over in our direction at once, which was mildly terrifying even though we were a few houses away, but they apparently were aware that dogs were not to be messed with (even a slobbery overly-happy basset hound) and dispersed pretty quickly.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:35 AM on November 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

If Turkules becomes president, it’s going to make the turkey-pardoning ceremony in 2025 really awkward.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:46 AM on November 26, 2023 [13 favorites]

Wasn't Polycules Achilles and Patroclus' friend?
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 7:20 AM on November 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

Once, when I was living Providence, Rhode Island, I came home only to be greeted by my neighbor who beckoned me over to the backporch. An adult wild turkey was just hanging out, walking slowly and deliberately around the yard like a baron inspecting the work of his groundskeepers. I’d never seen one before in the flesh, and he was enormous and stately. After a while our next-door-neighbors’ pair of loud, aggressive dogs caught whiff of this unexpected visitor and they rushed to the fence and started barking their fool heads off. The turkey seemed, at first, not to notice them at all, and kept strolling around the yard. But after a while, he made his way to the fence, near the spot the dogs were behind, and then flew up onto a garage that was split between the two properties, and gave the canine pair a stare from on high. The dogs went absolutely nuts, jumping up against the wall of the garage while barking. The turkey cleaned himself a little bit and then, out of the blue, dropped onto the ground by the two dogs, who went completely quiet. What happened next I didn’t see, as the fence was solid, but the silence was broken only by sounds of scuffling and then the dogs ran the fuck away, whimpering, like satan’s own fowl was chairing them. The turkey flew back up to the garage, rearranged some ruffled feathers, gave me and my neighbor a look as if to tell us the lawn in the backyard wasn’t up to code, and then flew off.

I will, absolutely, never mess with a wild turkey.
posted by Kattullus at 7:55 AM on November 26, 2023 [33 favorites]

Granted that it did take me a minute to sort out the pronunciation they were going for, whoever came up with "Turkules" should be proud. That's hilarious.
posted by EvaDestruction at 9:20 AM on November 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

TURKULES TURKULES TURKULES
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:35 AM on November 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

But a large tom turkey running around harassing pedestrians with a tranq dart sticking out of him...

Yup, that's New Jersey in a nutshell there.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:43 AM on November 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

I think I've told this story here before, but I can't find it.

My (now ex-) wife and I were spending some time on friends' property in southern Georgia. It was a forested bird sanctuary, mostly left as-is except for mowed fire break paths. As we walked along one such path one morning we noticed a small group of wild turkeys crossing the path some distance ahead of us. We continued our walk, assuming they'd be long-gone by the time we got that far.

A few minutes later as we were passing some low bushes, there was an explosion of sound literally right next to us. Nearly gave us a heart attack, and I feared in the first split second that we were being charged by a wild boar. Fortunately it was the turkeys suddenly taking flight - apparently they'd been hiding in the bushes but panicked when they decided we'd gotten too close. As our hearts returned to a normal speed we watched these large birds (and even larger tom) majestically fly away, banking left and right so they didn't clip the close-set pine trees with their considerable wingspan.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:07 AM on November 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

Turkules vs the previously linked turkey slapping machine could be the ballad of John Henry for our age.
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 11:37 AM on November 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

"It's like our version of Taylor Swift coming to town."

A few months ago I was walking home, and I had to cross the freeway at the light rail stop. As I got closer, I was like why is it so crowded? Closer still, and I'm like wait, why is everyone wearing black and brown? And why do some people have feathers? And then like whats with the red dangling things?

And then I heard someone go "gobble, gobble", and I was like oh yeah, Turkules is at Lumen Field tonight.
posted by Gorgik at 12:05 PM on November 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

A character called Turkules featured in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Turkey Day show for 2022. Sadly he didn't appear this year.
posted by JHarris at 1:32 PM on November 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

(I have been unable to find an online guide on how to pronounce polycules, which I assume is three syllables?)
posted by maxwelton at 1:41 PM on November 26, 2023

Mmm…12 servings of Turkules! (/Homer)
posted by TedW at 1:51 PM on November 26, 2023

how to pronounce polycules

Rhymes with molecules.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:01 PM on November 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

Not anywhere near as scary as geese but way fucking creepier when you're walking in the woods and start to hear Turkey Noises(TM) from every direction.

I live in the woods with about a kilometer long trek to my mailbox; I have an electric golf car I often use to make the trip. Occasionally I will startle a wild turkey into flight. They are noted for their prowess at flying through trees, and when it is quiet out it sounds like a helicopter taking off nearby if you aren’t expecting it. A big owl (barred owls where I am, mostly) on the other hand is really spooky; they fly completely silently and just appear out of nowhere in the headlights of the golf car or flying just over my head, and then are gone.
posted by TedW at 2:04 PM on November 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

One morning last year I registered motion outside the window out of the corner of my eye, and it was a turkey running back and forth along our fenceline, freaking out.

I stepped out on the porch to open the gate on that side of the yard and discovered that the our uphill neighbors were standing on their porch just watching it and our downhill neighbor was standing in *his* yard watching it.

Uphill neighbor said, "Yours?" when I stepped outside, and I said, "Wild. But turkeys are idiots and it's forgotten there are other means of escape, so I'm going to open this gate and if you'll go inside it'll eventually come this way and figure it out."

I pushed the gate open with a scrape, and that was just threatening enough for it to remember OH SHIT I'M A BIRD!!! and it flew away.
posted by jocelmeow at 2:14 PM on November 26, 2023 [9 favorites]

It's just the one turkey, actually.
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:47 PM on November 26, 2023

A few years ago I was hiking a ravine trail in the CVNP when I heard an approaching cacophony of gobbling. Waddling down the hill came a flock of turkeys, probably 12 - 15 of them. They crossed the path, continued up the other side of the ravine and went gobbling away through the woods.
posted by slogger at 4:21 PM on November 26, 2023

Twice last spring I was surprised (I'm phrasing it this way because I'm sure the turkey wasn't) by stumbling across a turkey in the woods one foot off of the trail I was walking on. You haven't experience surprise until an hithertofore unnoticed animal that large takes flight 12 inches from your face.
posted by mollweide at 5:32 PM on November 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

I once stayed at an artists' residency with lots of installations in a wooded park, including one made mostly of big golden mirrors. Here is a video I took of a turkey attacking the art installation :)
posted by daisystomper at 6:01 PM on November 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

I used to have a small farm in Pennsylvania and in my experience wild turkeys were spontaneously generated by rain. A little downpour, and then a flock would appear and gobble their way across our field and up into the woods.

One time I stumbled across a turkey a bit closer than planned and she started, um, angrily dancing at me? Lots of aggressive but impressively acrobatic neck gyrations. She led me around the field; I was kind of enraptured (but still aware enough to also focus on not getting bit or otherwise accosted by the turkey). Later I realized she had some chicks hidden in a thicket and she'd been dancing me away from them. Clever bird!
posted by cnidaria at 10:39 PM on November 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

I sent this article to a friend from high school who is now a biology professor and turkey expert extraordinaire. He's the guy who posts an almost annual plea to eat something else at Thanksgiving and is always on the side of the turkey in human v. turkey incidents.

He's the guy the media calls for their turkey behavior-related questions, like one of my favorites, What's up with the turkey's snood?
posted by ceejaytee at 6:10 AM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Absolute unit.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:27 AM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]