Running wildlife

I saw this guy on my run this morning. We’re in a suburban area bordered by lots of ranches and it’s not uncommon at all to see Longhorn cattle grazing in front of an office building in Texas. It reminded me though of an uncommon sighting a few years ago.

We were living in Omaha and living in a city neighborhood. One day my husband came back from his run looking very frazzled. He’d been chased by a pack of wild turkeys he claimed. Though he’s prone to exaggeration, this I knew was true, I’d seen the turkeys too. It was so odd though, a pack of turkeys milling about in a neighborhood. The first time I saw them it was around Thanksgiving and they were clustered in the backyard of a house that wasn’t fenced in. My initial thought was that a family had ordered some extra fresh turkey for Thanksgiving. Soon though reports popped up in the newspaper about runners and pedestrians being harassed by the turkeys including one who was saved by a passing motorist. But the thing I remember most clearly about the turkey incident was how a few weeks after my husband’s run in he asked me (with a straight face and in all seriousness) “you know those birds that chased me? Are you sure they weren’t ostriches?” Really, he mulled this over and then said it out loud and even as it hung in the air, he didn’t think it sounded ridiculous. A little while after that I read a newspaper article about how Sea World had to change its parking lot identification method because they were using signs of different sea animals to designate parking areas. They had to change because they had overestimated adults’ ability to identify sea animals. I guess land animal identification isn’t much better.

That’s why I like to run outside, you get to see wildlife and gather plenty of humorous blog fodder about your husband. Even if you are a treadmill runner, try and get out and do an outside run at least once a week. You notice all kinds of things you might not ever see. It’s not always pleasant, I saw a deer leg last week. Yes, just the leg. But if you are stuck at a cocktail party without a good ice breaker “I was chased by a pack of wild ostriches” is sure to get the conversation going.

Put this in your running mix. And check the video here. These are friends of my brother and the video is by bandmember Nick who is an animator.