AP
 
Greenlawn (New York, US), Nov 25: Fifteen wild turkeys strutted into a suburban hamlet on Thanksgiving Day and then left just in time to avoid dinner.

The turkeys showed up on Thursday morning, drawing crowds of spectators, but left — marching in single file — at about 1 pm.

Suffolk County police were called because the turkeys created a traffic hazard while crossing a road. But the officers didn't have to intervene because the birds kept walking — and hadn't been seen or heard from since, residents said on Friday.

Resident Joyce Logan said there was no practical joke involved and the turkeys could have wandered into the Long Island neighbourhood about 60 km east of Manhattan from a nearby wooded area, where she had been hearing gobbles since summer.

Logan said the birds walked away in a straight line between her house and her neighbour's, and she went back inside to prepare a store-bought turkey dinner for her family.

Unlike some neighbours, Logan said, she never had thoughts of catching one of the turkeys in her yard and turning it into dinner.

"I can't eat something that I've met," she said.