Wild turkey adopts excavator

A wild turkey has formed an unlikely bond with an excavator.

It’s been following the machine and its operator around on a job site at McKinley in Kelowna for two weeks.

“Originally it was the grader that my husband was running that the turkey loved,” said Shelley Gardiner, the excavator operator’s wife. “When he was grading the road, the turkey would run beside him.”

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Now that her husband, Corry Gardiner, is operating the excavator, the turkey won’t leave the excavator alone, she said.

“When he finishes at end of day, the turkey sleeps in the big metal tracks of the excavator. When he comes to work the next morning, the turkey is hunkered down in the tracks,” she said.

“Even throughout the weekend, he comes back Monday morning, and the turkey is there waiting for him.”

Nobody knows why the wild turkey has decided to adopt the excavator, Gardiner said.

“But of course, everybody’s teasing my husband about his pet turkey now.”

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Gardiner named the wild turkey Fudd after Looney Tunes’ Elmer Fudd.

They believe the bird is a male although they’re not sure, she said.

Workers have to be extra cautious on the job site because the bird won’t leave, Gardiner added.

“When there are big dump trucks coming in, they have to honk so the turkey gets out of their way,” she said.

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The wild turkey is also getting braver as more time passes, Gardiner said.

“He doesn’t move very far from excavator now.”