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Like other wild birds, turkeys regularly show up on the deck of Mitchell cabin. We put out birdseed for smaller birds, and the turkeys try to horn in on the meal. The trouble is the turkeys will gobble it all up if they can, and they scare off the other birds. Perhaps worst of all, they leave behind huge droppings.

Benjamin Franklin disapproved of bald eagles being named our national bird, and there has long been a myth that he wanted the turkey to replace the bald eagle as our national bird. In fact, he merely compared the eagle to a turkey to denigrate the eagle. The myth grew out of a letter Franklin wrote his daughter in which he complained that the “bald eagle…is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly…[He] is too lazy to fish for himself.”

Even the turkey, Franklin wrote, is “a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America…He is besides — though a little vain and silly — a bird of courage.”

I’m glad that no one actually proposed making turkeys our national bird because Lynn and I are forever having to shoo them off our deck.

Despite our shooing, turkeys only momentarily stop showing up.

Wild turkeys are native to the Midwest and East Coast, as well as Canada and Mexico — but not to California. They got here in the 1950s when the state Department of Fish and Game, as it was then named, released some in the Napa Valley as prey for hunters.

In 1988, a few from the Napa Valley flock were transported to Loma Alta Ranch overlooking the San Geronimo Valley. Before long that small flock expanded to the valley floor and by the year 2000 had spread throughout West Marin.

The view from Mitchell cabin.

They can also be a nuisance in other ways. In an extreme case, a turkey in February 2005 blacked out the town of Tomales.

Turkeys are not great flyers, and turkeys in Tomales had taken to gliding off a steep slope to get across Highway 1.

On one occasion, a turkey misjudged the height of some powerlines and flew into them. Two 12,000-volt lines slapped together, causing an explosion with a bright flash.

The explosion surprisingly did not kill the turkey. It fell to the ground and started wandering around in dazed circles. Resident Walter Earle, who saw the flash, immediately called the county fire department to report, “Some turkey just took out the powerlines.” Fire Capt. Tom Nunes later said he at first assumed Earle was talking about a drunk driver. The blackout lasted four hours.