Turkey trottin'

You know those GEICO commercials on TV? And the one where LiMu Emu is marrying Emu Linda, and they get that Doug guy to do the honors and Emu Kevin objects, but Doug stops that nonsense right away with a quick "Not today, Kevin!"

We don't have emus in our neighborhood but every now and then we see a wild turkey strutting around, and up in Woburn, Massachusetts, a whole flock of wild turkeys has been going buck wild, intimidating the locals, pecking at tires, who knows what's next...and a woman named Meaghan Tolson has named the leader bird "Kevin."

Meaghan has her hands full with this. Five wild turkeys are squatting on her lawn with impunity, but she says Kevin is the ringleader, and she wants the ring closed down.

She did take time from her busy turkey-hating schedule to give names (Gladys, Ester, Monica and Patricia) to the hens, while blaming Kevin for the turkey trotting:

“The women are more mellow and not so territorial. But I think he kind of amps them up to get them going to chase people,” she told The Guardian website.

Ms Tolson has shared lots of videos of Kevin lurking around her front door and her car, and feels sort of trapped by them:

 “They don’t let you out of your house,” she said.

She's not alone. “They’re up at 6 a.m. in my lawn and start chasing us, trying to pop the tires,” Woburn resident Devin Farren told NBC Boston. “It’s wild!”

Good news for jobseekers: there is a position called "turkey expert" with the Massachusetts State Wildlife Department. David Scarpitti currently holds the job, and he blames all this on the turkeys getting too used to being around people. People feed them directly or allow them access to bird feeders meant for the scarlet tanagers.

“Turkeys are just kind of acting out what they do amongst themselves,” says Scarpitti. And he wants you to know that if you run from the turkeys, that only makes it worse, because in that case, the turkeys will see you as being "subdominant" to them.

So, he advises, instead of running off, carry an umbrella and open it to scare away the turkeys. This works because the turkeys fear rain.

They think it's gravy.