Megara Bell
Wild Turkey poult. Photograph courtesy of the author.
My daughter Nora found a tiny, uninjured chick in the road in Newton Centre. So we asked around to find out if anyone had lost a chicken. We knocked on the neighbor's door and she answered and asked me, "Are you sure it's a chicken?" It turns out it wasn't a chicken, but a wee lost wild turkey.
Now you might look at this poult and say it doesn't look like a chick, but it looked a lot like a less than one-week-old chick to me. Rumor was it had been lost for a couple of days. Anyway, it wasn't going to fare well in the middle of the road, so we rescued it. My kids brought it a mirror and a hot pack in a sock to keep it company and that calmed the poult down. My mother Christine King, the proofreader for Bird Observer, and I brought it to New England Wildlife, where they had another lone poult. Now they can be buddies.
New England Wildlife Center relies on contributions to rehabilitate wildlife. To learn more about them, support lost little poults, and more, go to their website: www.NEWildlife.org.