Wilf Lunn: Turkey trot, then feathers fly

Feb 14 2009 by Our Correspondent, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

WHEN I was a boy I decided to take up archery and make my own arrows.

I’d read that turkey feathers made good arrow flights. So I set out to find some.

The local kids said there was a turkey farm up past Longroyd School at Field Head.

I set off and unlike most childhood legends it proved to be true.

I found the farm and asked the farmer if he had turkeys and could I have some feathers. He took me to his turkeys all crowded in a small paddock.

I’d never seen a live turkey and my first sight of them was scary.

They were nearly as big as me; bristling with white feathers and apparently very, very angry about something and making one hell of a din.

The farmer with a smile on his face said, “There you are lad pick as many as you want”.

My paper flights seemed to work quite well.

Turkeys are large, but as birds go they don’t compare to rheas. A rhea is like a small ostrich. A friend of mine Cathi has three rheas. She’s well used to the joke about her rhea (rear).

I wondered how she came to have three rheas. Incidentally they are called; Phleas, Spike and Fleur.

She told me they were rescue birds. This made me think, now Christmas is forgotten about, why not ring round and see if there are any rescue turkeys available.

PS. Uncle Wilf always said the best bit of the bird was the bit that did all the work – namely the legs.

You’d get a hell of a drumstick off a rhea. Get ringing.

‘She loves me. She loves me not’.

It’s an old turkey plucking song.