You might have read the title up there and said “Hey, you don’t write a post about a bird every week!” I respond with this: sometimes life does not allow you to be as indie as you’d like to be. I got thrown out of my senior prom for trying to wear those exact same ironically pink cords you read about. We’re not the problem. Pink cords are not the problem. Society is the problem.
Anyway, I would love to be a real indie bastard and give you some random bird this week, but today is Thanksgiving, and we will honor the bird that has a very bad time on this day: the turkey.
The always reliable Wikipedia tells us that the turkey’s we eat on this day descend from Meleagris gallopavo. The fleshy part on the top of the turkey’s beak is called a snood while the part under the beak is known as a wattle. Those are some nice truth bombs to drop on your friends. Turkeys live a mostly mundane life. If I had to live my whole life cramped up next to a bunch of other people waiting to be inevitably slaughtered and have my head chopped off then eventually savored by millions of people every Thanksgiving, all while the farmer may or may not be listening to Creed or Nickelback on the job, I would be a little pissed. Run-on sentences aside, I can see how some turkey fights might break out. When turkeys get mad, they let out a high-pitched shriek, which initiates a turkey duel in which the turkeys essentially duke it out with their large, sharp talons (essentially). Indie bird aggression should not be underestimated.
Also, according to Wikipedia, the male turkey and I try to woo our prospective female species the exact same way:
“Maturing males spend a considerable proportion of their time sexually displaying. This is very similar to that of the wild turkey and involves fanning the tail feathers, drooping the wings and erecting all body feathers, including the ‘beard’ (a tuft of black, modified hair-like feathers on the centre of the breast). The skin of the head, neck and caruncles (fleshy nodules) becomes bright blue and red, and the snood (an erectile appendage on the forehead) elongates. The birds ‘sneeze’ at regular intervals, followed by a rapid vibration of their tail feathers. Throughout, the birds strut slowly about, with the neck arched backward, their breasts thrust forward and emitting their characteristic ‘gobbling’ call.”
My lady-friend Aurora is getting all hot and bothered just thinking about that.
But we mostly see the turkey in it’s natural, most delicious state:
Happy Thanksgiving!
– The Nature Boy
IndieBastard 