Last fall, Mike Campbell stepped out into the empty lot behind his shop and saw something a little unexpected.
"Obviously, you see birds, and squirrels, and rabbits, and cats occasionally, but you walk outside and you see three turkeys standing there — that's a little bit different," Campbell said, who owns Murdick's Fudge Shop in Suttons Bay and is the president of the local chamber of commerce.
He says it’s not weird to see turkeys around, but these turkeys were unique.
"What was kind of odd is that they stayed and they didn't go anywhere," he said. "So apparently she felt like this was a good place to raise her children."
A hen showed up with two tiny babies around October, Campbell said. Once they got bigger, the trio got braver.
"You'd see them standing in the middle of M-22 stopping traffic," he said.
One of the chicks disappeared pretty early on, maybe hit by a car or snatched up by some predator. But the two remaining turkeys reached celebrity status in Suttons Bay. The village held a Facebook vote for names: Bay-Lee and Sutton took the crown.
Thelma and Louise were also popular choices — two ladies with a penchant for danger.
"I did notice some people had put out some corn for them in trying to help keep them off of the main road," Campbell said. "I've seen every business owner around the village out there in the street herding the turkeys off of the road to try and make sure that they were safe."
Inside Hive Coffee Co., across the street, owner Landon McDaid says he had his own names.
"I think I called one Ruth and the other one Gladys, but then I heard rumor that they were both males. I'm not quite sure," McDaid said, laughing.
He never had to shoo them away, but they did follow him down the block once, and another time parked in front of the door to his friend's house.
"So I had to kind of scoot around them," he said.
By mid-February there was only one turkey left, until it was presumably hit by a car sometime last week.
Wild turkeys as a whole are thriving in Michigan, thanks to decades of conservation efforts. But these three in particular left their mark on the village of Suttons Bay.
"I don't know, [I feel] kind of at peace, because he or she's no longer lonely looking for Ruth," McDaid said.
Campbell, back at the fudge shop, said he was sad to see them go. They broke up the daily routine and brought a welcome distraction in winter.
"It felt like they were mascots of the village, and as long as they were around, it was just nice having them around," Campbell said. "It's just like going home to your pets, whatever they might be, and just it's a feeling of warmth and comfort, security."
Video courtesy of Elizabeth Rutila.
