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2 shaken up after turkey collides with pickup

Scott Taylor and his friend Thomas Walls were motoring down State Highway 71 towards Wadena Sunday afternoon when he spotted a flock of 6 or so turkeys crossing the roadway.
Credit: Scott Taylor
Scott Taylor and his buddy were rolling down Highway 71 en route to Wadena Sunday when a wild turkey exploded through the windshield of his trusty 1988 F-150.

MENAGHA, Minn. - It's enough to make a guy cry fowl.

Scott Taylor of Menagha is hoping his trusty 1988 Ford F-150 is fixable after it came out on the short end of a collision with a sizable wild turkey. The 51-year-old Taylor and his friend Thomas Walls were motoring down State Highway 71 towards Wadena, on their way to get gravel to repair the driveway Sunday afternoon when he spotted a flock of 6 or so turkeys crossing the roadway. Taylor slowed down to let them pass, then sped back up to 60, only to have a straggling Tom fly right into the passenger side of his windshield.

Credit: Scott Taylor
Taylor figures the big tom weighed at least 30 pounds. "Sounded like a gun went off," he recalled of the moment the big turkey hit his windshield.

"Sounded like a gun went off," he recalls. "Next thing I know I'm getting beat up by its wings. Them things hurt."

Taylor figures the tom was 30 pounds or so, and extremely strong. Somehow he managed to pull over safely and hop out of the truck, dragging the wild bird out after him. His friend stayed put, stunned after the impact and cut by flying glass. Taylor happened to flag down a Menahga Police Officer on his way to work, and a State Trooper also stopped.

Believing the turkey posed a continuing threat to motorists and public safety, the decision was made to dispatch the bird. The trooper shot twice with his handgun, and the bird sat there like nothing had happened.

"That's gotta be one tough bird," Taylor remembers saying to the officer. "You gotta be kidding me right now," he recalls the cop saying.

The Menahga officer retrieved his shotgun and put the turkey down.

Taylor says he's still a bit shaken up, adding that after five decades in the north country it's the first... and hopefully the last time he tangles with a wild turkey.

Credit: Scott Taylor
Scott Taylor says he's hit deer before, but this is the first wild turkey his truck has tangled with.

"I've never hit a bird... I've hit deer," he sighed.

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