I was on my way to hunt yesterday morning when something caught my eye. A large brown object was in East Musquash Lake on Route 6 in Topsfield. My first thought was a moose was swimming across the lake but I quickly realized it wasn’t that. It was too big to be the head of a moose. I looked in the rear view mirror. Nothing behind me so I pulled over along the guard rail and grabbed my camera out of my hunting pack.

Hmmm… Not a tree. What IS that Unidentified Floating Object? Feathers? Are those feathers? Yes, feathers. I haven’t seen the loons in a week or so and anyway, it was too fluffy to be a loon. Too large to be a duck and again, all that fluff. This wasn’t a water bird. After snapping a few fuzzy photos (because aren’t UFO photos supposed to be fuzzy?) I drove further up Route 6 and pulled over in a safer spot. The lens was strained to its max on a camera that isn’t great in anything but bright light but it was good enough to solve the mystery.

One of the oddest things I’ve ever seen. What happened?

It is a turkey. A dead turkey, floating on its back on the lake. I have two thoughts of what might have happened? What do you think?

Maybe a Great Horned Owl attacked the turkey as it slept in a tree the previous night. There are a lot of large trees at the edge of the lake and there are turkeys in the area on a regular basis. Or maybe it got hit and landed in the water. I don’t know. It’s one of the oddest things I’ve seen outdoors. Any suggestions?