John Chaney with the offending bird.

For those of you who missed this late-breaking story yesterday, a turkey broke into the Deadwood Public Library. Here’s how things went down, according to a report in The Black Hills (SD) Pioneer:

Library Director Jeanette Chaney-Moodie received a call around 9 a.m. Sunday morning from the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office, informing her that one of the library windows was broken.

Around 10 a.m. Sgt. Ken Mertens of the Deadwood Police Department said he, too, was notified that the window was broken and went over to check it out.

“I drove up Shine Street and sure enough, there was a hole in the window,” Mertens said. “The funny thing was, I couldn’t see any footprints and the sidewalk was snowblown, so I was thinking the guy who snowblowed maybe shot a rock up and that’s what happened.”

Upon closer investigation, Mertens and Chaney-Moodie discovered the culprit.

A 20+ pound wild turkey had crash-landed into one of the original historic windows of the library, and was flying around desperately looking for the exit.

Sgt. Mertens and Jeanette Chaney-Moodie’s husband, John Chaney, promptly coralled the bird, placing a blanket over its head, and set it free. On release, the intruder ran behind some shrubs and disappeared.

No books — nor birds, for that matter — were damaged in the incident.