"I said, 'I don't believe my eyes, that's a turkey,'" Camano said.

In fact, it's Sea Isle City's only turkey.

In this heavily developed resort of side-by-side houses, turkeys usually appear only inside hoagies.

Wild turkeys abound in mainland communities, but they are separated by two miles of marshes, channels and sounds.

But no one in Sea Isle City, including one of the city's oldest residents, could remember seeing one on the barrier island before.

"The last time this island probably saw a turkey was back in the day when this was a barren island," Camano said.

New Jersey's wild turkey population has shot up since the birds were reintroduced in 1977 and has almost doubled in the past 10 years, according to state statistics.

But in 2.2-square-mile Sea Isle City, the wild bird is an unfamiliar sight.

"I heard a loud noise out back," neighbor Bob Munion said. "I thought it was a cat."

Alone in a backyard on 45th Street, the turkey looked more confused than your average bird.

It paced along a chain-link fence like a prisoner in a courtyard, then hid quietly beneath a rhododendron.

"She feels protected under that bush. She feels like she's in the woods," Camano said.

The bird then flew to the top of a four-story condo and jumped in and out of the backyards of a few empty beach houses before flying off, somewhere.

Bill Candell, animal-control officer for the barrier island towns of Sea Isle City, Avalon and Stone Harbor, never saw a wild turkey there either, he said.

Although it isn't beyond the realm of possibility that one would wind up there, he said.

"As far as flying goes, they're sprinters. I guess one could hopscotch across the boulevard," he said.

While farm-raised turkeys cannot fly, wild turkeys can fly as fast as 55 mph over a short distance, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac Web site.

The bird could have braved Sea Isle Boulevard and its speed limits.

Camano thinks the turkey took advantage of low tide, made its way across the marshes, flew across the channel and ended up downtown.

Befitting the stereotype of the bird's brainpower, Sea Isle City's only turkey didn't show the best judgment Tuesday morning.

Camano, a restaurateur and hunter who has stuffed moose and deer heads in the living room - as well as a stuffed turkey - said the wild hen turkey settled in the yard next to his.

Of course, Camano wouldn't shoot it. But how could the turkey know that?

The bird's future in Sea Isle City is murky.

The streets here are mostly empty now. But in a month or two, they will be filled with tourists hungry for the sun and surf.

"I don't think she'll make it here, especially in the next three to four weeks," Camano said. "There's a lot of traffic here."

By the mid-1800s, wild turkeys had all but disappeared from New Jersey due to changes in their habitat and as a result of hunting, state Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Darlene Yuhas said.

In 1977, a turkey-restoration project released the wild birds back into the Garden State.

Ten years later, there were about 7,000, she said. In 1998, that number grew to about 13,500.

The state's estimated turkey population now is between 20,000 and 23,000, Yuhas said.

"The wild turkey is one of New Jersey's wildlife success stories," she said.

But whether Sea Isle's bird is a symbol of a growing turkey population branching out or just an errant turkey that wandered near the beach is unknown.

What is known is a wild turkey is a rare find on a barrier island.

"I have never seen a live turkey in Sea Isle City," Mayor Leonard Desiderio said.

Mickey Weiner, a retired high school teacher, lives on Pleasure Avenue and will turn 100 years old in October.

In all his years as a summer and then full-time resident, he never saw a wild turkey in Sea Isle City, his wife, Ginny, said.

"We don't even have a rabbit now since the storm of '62," she said. "We used to have rabbits here. They all drowned in the storm."

To e-mail Brian Ianieri at The Press: