Manhattan has a new unlikely feathered friend, and she’s visiting luxury retailers, dining at high-end restaurants and roosting in Park Avenue’s densest, greenest trees.
Known as Astoria, the wild turkey is about as tall as a toddler, with iridescent hues of orange and blue in her brown feathers, an elegant neck, a healthy figure and wings that have helicopter-like strength.
Her unusual appearance in Manhattan this week has once again drummed up excitement, bemusement and a growing following of New Yorkers fascinated by the wild fowl’s adventures — and concerned for its safety — in the Big Apple.
David Barrett, a birder who runs the Manhattan Bird Alert account on X, was out in Central Park with his camera when he received an alert from a birding website after 5 p.m. on Tuesday about a wild turkey sighting in Midtown Manhattan.
He headed to the corner of 49th Street and Park Avenue, where he said the bird nestled in a planter outside of Fasano, a high-end Italian restaurant.
Persons:
—, David Barrett
Organizations:
Manhattan, Big Apple
Locations:
Astoria, Manhattan, Central Park, Midtown Manhattan, Fasano