‘Guess it’s mating season’: Turkey breaks into California dental office and claws it up
A large and apparently very confused turkey smashed through the window of a California oral surgeon’s office Wednesday afternoon, causing a mess and a fright for the lone woman still in the building.
“I guess it’s mating season, and she doesn’t want to,” Donna McDonald, office manager at Gregory Hailey DDS on Greenback Lane in Fair Oaks, told The Sacramento Bee in a phone interview Thursday.
McDonald says a dozen or so turkeys — “a gaggle, or whatever you’d call it” — hang out frequently on the greenbelt behind their office, but that Wednesday’s visitor was one of the largest she’s seen.
The turkey broke in through dual-pane windows in the patient consultation area, which McDonald said thankfully had no patients inside at the time.
McDonald, alone in the office except for the feathery visitor, said she first thought the crashing sound was an earthquake.
Then, when she saw what it was, she thought the fowl may have been launched from busy Greenback Lane.
“I thought it actually got hit by a car,” she said.
McDonald called animal control, which redirected her to Gold Country Wildlife Rescue, and a woman came to evict the bird.
“There was no wrangling this bird as an amateur. The wildlife lady kind of struggled with it,” McDonald said.
The rescue worker told McDonald the turkey didn’t appear to be seriously hurt and it’ll be released back into the wild.
While it was indoors, though, it wrought havoc.
“It clawed up multiple walls to where we’re gonna have to repaint in there. Some of the glass that came in cut the dental chairs ... and we’ll need some deep cleaning.”
Wednesday’s turkey kerfuffle was first reported by CBS 13, which quoted a Gold Country Wildlife Rescue treasurer who speculated the bird may have seen her own reflection in the window and tried to attack it.
As McDonald pointed out, it is mating season, after all.
This story was originally published March 4, 2021 at 1:02 PM with the headline "‘Guess it’s mating season’: Turkey breaks into California dental office and claws it up."
