The first time we stayed on the Kohala Coast of Hawaii I remember waking up up at 5 am with major jetlag and thinking, “I hear gobbling. Is that a turkey?”   It turns out that yes, there are turkeys are living at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel… even on the golf course where they’ll ocassionally stick their head into your cart to see if you have anything good for lunch!  This trip we stayed in a different section of the hotel and there was a resident tom turkey who came onto the lawn every night at sunset.  I’ve never seen a turkey up-close, though they seem to have made a resurgence in Connecticut in the past 10 years.  This free-range fellow was clearly used to the camera and came quite close to me while I took photos from our hammock.

I’ve always heard turkeys aren’t the brightest birds, but just take a look at where this guy comes to spend sunset every day and tell me what you think.