Turkeys visit N.Y. town for Thanksgiving

GREENLAWN, N.Y. -- Fifteen wild turkeys strutted into a suburban hamlet on Thanksgiving Day and then left just in time to avoid dinner.

The turkeys showed up Thursday morning, drawing crowds of spectators, but left -- marching in single file -- at about 1 p.m.

Suffolk County police were called because the turkeys created a traffic hazard while crossing a road. But the officers didn't have to intervene because the birds kept walking.

Resident Joyce Logan said there was no practical joke involved and the turkeys could have wandered into the Long Island neighborhood about 40 miles east of Manhattan from a nearby wooded area, where she had been hearing gobbles since summer.

Logan said the birds walked away in a straight line between her house and her neighbor's, and she went back inside to prepare a store-bought turkey dinner for her family.

Unlike some neighbors, Logan said, she never had thoughts of catching one of the turkeys in her yard and turning it into dinner.

"I can't eat something that I've met," she said.