As Brown students flocked back to campus last weekend, they may have noticed a large brown bird wandering the streets. He is known as the College Hill turkey — a moniker the Providence community has lovingly bestowed upon the bird.
The turkey is male and most likely “anywhere between one and four years old,” according to Sheida Soleimani, the founder of Providence-based wild bird clinic Congress of the Birds.
The tom, a term for wild male turkeys, likely settled down in College Hill during his quest for a partner during mating season, Soleimani said. But he does not seem to have found one.
The radius of the turkey’s territory, as well as his age and gender, led Soleimani to believe most turkey sightings in the area were all that one bird.
“He’s a chill turkey, just hanging out, trying to find love,” Soleimani added.
One of the turkey’s most frequented spots is outside the Providence Athenaeum, located just west of the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library. Stephanie Ovoian, the head of research and library services for the Athenaeum, said she first spotted the turkey in May and that he has been “visiting on and off” since then.
The turkey likes to “hang out in the mulch (and) dig some little holes,” Ovoian added, noting that the feathery friend often visits the library’s garden beds and parking lot. Residents of Benefit Street told her that they have observed him sleeping on the Athenaeum’s roof at night, she added.
Because it was first spotted near the “little plot of grass” by the Superior Court on Benefit Street, library staff dubbed the bird “Esquire,” Ovoian said.
But on other parts of College Hill, the turkey has quickly gained a reputation for wreaking havoc on the streets.
“I almost hit (him) with my car last spring,” said Ivyhailyn Montoya ’27, a former Herald copy editor, who saw the bird while driving up College Street. “I had to swerve out of the way,” she added.
Acadia Phillips ’28 also encountered the turkey several times throughout the summer. “I would have to stop my car and get out and chase (him) out of the street,” she told The Herald.
On Aug. 30, Phillips spotted the turkey again by the Rock. “(He) started chasing me back,” she said. “I had to run and jump in the car.”
According to Erika Cole, the director of the Providence Animal Care and Control Center, the office has received several reports from Providence residents saying they are concerned for the turkey’s safety. Animal Care and Control has also received a report from a patrol officer who was “confronted by the turkey while on a detail,” Cole added in an email to The Herald.
According to Soleimani, Congress of the Birds received “anywhere between five to 10 calls per day this summer” from Providence residents worried about the bird’s safety.
Wild turkeys in the Ocean State date back to the early stages of New England colonization, during which they were “super common across the landscape,” said Lizzi Bonczek, the upland game bird biologist for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s Division of Fish and Wildlife.
This population declined and was eventually eradicated in the 1800s due to overharvesting and habitat loss, Bonczek added. But a century later, as farms across the region were abandoned due to the Great Depression, there were “increased suitable habitats for turkeys,” Bonczek said. “And biologists began to consider reintroductions.”
From the 1980s to 1990s, RIDEM collaborated with the National Wild Turkey Federation on a wildlife restoration program to move turkeys from other states and “establish new turkey flocks” throughout Rhode Island, RIDEM Spokesperson Evan LaCross told The Herald.
Today, “turkeys have colonized every single town in Rhode Island, except for Block Island,” Bonczek added.
The juvenile male on Brown’s campus may have found one of the best dwellings in the area. Bonczek described college campuses as a “great habitat” for a turkey. She pointed to the open grassy areas and roost trees — with wide horizontal limbs to sleep on — as attractive natural features for these birds.
The turkey is “a representation of the fact that we share our space with wild animals,” Soleimani said, adding that turkeys are also common in other areas around Providence like Swan Point Cemetery, Smith Hill and India Point Park.
“For us to think that we are the only ones that inhabit space is extremely egotistical,” Soleimani added.
