ML618336688

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

Unabashedly out-of-place gigantic gamebird, strutting along the wooded trail at this tiny, unassuming urban farm, apparently present since at least April 27th. Initially brought to the attention of the birding community by Brandon Michael Lowden on April 29th, drawing a handful of curious Queens birders to this most unlikely corner of the county over the course of the intervening days. This visit was an easy detour on my commute home, so it was hard to resist a quick drop-in. Female bird based on dull-colored head and the absence of spurs, presumably immature given uneven lengths of rectrices. All plumage and structural details consistent with wild phenotype rather than an escaped domestic bird, as some have posited. The window is certainly wide open for dispersal during this season, as evidenced by news of a separate individual Wild Turkey that was seen roaming around Randall’s Island on Monday afternoon and Astoria on Tuesday morning. April-May is also the time of year that this species most frequently turns up in forested parks in Manhattan, typically towards the northern end of the island but sometimes making their way well downtown (like the famous individual that inhabited the Battery from 2003 to 2014). It’s pretty awesome that these beefy, iridescent-plumed dinosaurs periodically go on walkabout through the streets of NYC. What a world

Technical information

Model

NIKON D7500

ISO

9000

Focal length

500 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/5.6

Shutter speed

1/800 sec

Dimensions

5402 pixels x 3601 pixels

Original file size

5.82 MB