Sully, the wild turkey who has become a celebrity in Southie, has not been seen in over a month. On the street, speculation about his whereabouts is rampant. (Chatter about the location of missing characters is, after all, a time-honored tradition in Southie.) With Thanksgiving approaching, things do not look good. Either the turkey's gone on the lam before it got too late, locals say, or it's already too late.

Sully reportedly arrived in the neighborhood more than six months ago with a half-dozen other turkeys, but they all left and he stayed behind and set up a territory in the area around Dorchester Heights. His fame was immediate - There's a wild turkey! Living in Southie! - but the more he hung around, the more he endeared himself. There have been increasing reports of wild turkeys settling in urban areas, but locals say this was no ordinary turkey.

He had a certain strut about him, an attitude. He was cocky. As he made his daily strolls through the neighborhood, he would often stop for long periods to admire his own reflection on car doors. If you stared at him, he would stare right back. He wasn't overly friendly, but he wasn't rude. If you left him alone, he would do the same. And, they say, he was fearless. Barking dogs and beeping cars did nothing to ruffle his feathers. He was, many locals say with pride, a Southie turkey.

"When he first got here, it was like this mania," said Tracy Falcone, who lives on East 6th Street in the heart of Sully's territory. "People would stop their cars. You'd see 20 people taking pictures. Everyone was talking about it. 'Did you see the turkey? Did you see the turkey?' "

Sully spotting became a game, and he made it easy because he seemed to go everywhere. He cruised Broadway; he strolled along L Street; he went to the beach.

When someone posted a fake notice in May in South Boston Online, a local weekly, claiming that the turkey was lost and there was a reward for anyone who found him, the paper received dozens of phone calls from people who complained that the 800 number in the ad didn't work. (They missed the fact that the ad was a joke for someone's birthday, and that the 800 number contained four too many digits.)

On East 8th Street, Sully, and his nonchalant jaywalking, became a part of the daily ritual for those who rode the No. 11 bus in the mornings. "It just fascinated everyone," said John Keller, who drove the morning shift on the No. 11 all summer and estimates he saw Sully between 40 and 50 times. "Everyone would rush to the front of the bus in amazement. The thing was huge, at least three or four feet tall. Sometimes, he'd just be standing there in the middle of the street, in no hurry to move. All the bus drivers liked him; we'd tell each other when he was out so we wouldn't run him over."