(WXYZ) — In Beverly Hills, Michigan, every day is turkey day.
"A year and a half ago, I was looking out our front window, and we live on Beverly, which is a main road, and there were these two turkeys running down the street being followed by a giant huge male turkey. And I thought that was kind of funny," said Amanda O'Gorman.
Amanda, a resident of Beverly Hills, says the antics didn’t stop there.
"These two have been hanging out at Beverly and Southfield, and I would see people stopping and taking pictures," she said.
So with encouragement from her daughter, Amanda created The Real Turkeys of Beverly Hills resident Facebook page this past summer.
"The next day, we were like, 'holy cow. Thirty five people joined this page.' We thought that was a lot … as soon as I put the page up, I could not believe how many people had pictures on their camera roll of these turkeys already. So it's really funny," said Amanda.
And so for months, residents have been documenting the turkeys’ whereabouts on the page that now has over 1,000 members.
"The big joke is they hang out by Honey Baked Ham and people are like, 'that's not the safest place for you to be hanging out,' or they they go to Books-A-Million a lot and they go to Market Fresh," she said.
These feathery friends, she says, have become a community staple.
"People are thinking that the Beverly Hills mascot should be a turkey," said Amanda.
While these beautiful birds are a sight to behold, they are wild animals, and Amanda recommends just letting them do their thing.
"Just leave them alone. I mean, I don't think they'll actually hurt you. I've seen videos on the page of people kind of walking near them, but they definitely circle and, you know, make it known that that's their territory," she said.
At the end of the day, one thing rings true: birds of a feather can bring a community together.
"After that crazy election period and COVID ... and we had this whole chicken vote in Beverly Hills, where some people wanted chicken, some people didn't ... this page has really brought the community kind of back together, which is really nice. You know, somebody said, 'the chickens divided us, but the turkeys brought us back together,'" joked Amanda.
