Last photos of 2025 – Just as i was readying to return home after a twilight walk, the local turkeys began migrating up into the trees for their nightly rest.
Wild Turkey in the Wolf Moon
Leave a reply
Tag Archives: Meleagris gallopavo
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours <3
I am thankful for your friendship and for your support of our film projects, Beauty on the Wing and The Piping Plovers of Moonlight Bay. Both films are continuing to do well and were only made possible because of your generosity and kind support. A most heartfelt thank you!
I may have but don’t think I did, shared this clip of a late hatched Turkey poult. Watch how Mom patiently waits for her poult to take a tiny seed from her mouth. Turkeys are so outwardly cumbrous but have such tender tendencies towards their young.
Happy Thanksgiving!
xxKim
No Soliciting Boys!
Happy Thanksgiving Eve <3
The Cutest Baby Turkey!
What a delight to spy this adorable baby Wild Turkey in mid-September. Based on its size, I think it is only about three weeks old, which is very late in the season for poults.
At one point the hen and poult were separated and they were softly vocalizing back and forth to each other. The poult then flew into a low lying tree branch. Poults learn to fly early on in life to keep safe from predators.
Wild Turkey poults eat a wide variety of insects and gradually begin to include nuts, seeds, and berries. Watch how the hen is teaching the poult how to forage. I think the poult is taking an insect from the hen’s beak but I can’t tell for sure if it is berry or bug.
Wild Turkey Mom looking for her poult
Turkey Towns – A Conservation Success Story!
Dear Friends,
I hope this Thanksgiving finds you well. Hopefully you have a joyful weekend ahead.
I was speaking over the phone with a dear friend who hasn’t visited New England in many years and misses it very much. I mentioned to her how the Wild Turkeys in our neighborhood look so comical when they take off to roost for the night onto tree branches. She said wait, what, Turkeys in your neighborhood? I said yes, of course, they are everywhere, not remembering that when she lived here there was none. She has never seen a single Wild Turkey nonchalantly perusing a city street, let alone gobbling gangs.
Eastern Wild Turkeys were once widespread. An estimated 10 million Wild Turkeys roamed North America, from southern Canada, throughout the continental US to Mexico. As the nation became colonized, the settlers cut down forests as they went. New England was particularly hard hit. The birds lost not only their food supply of acorns and chestnuts, but also their protective cover. Turkeys became extirpated from Massachusetts (no longer living in the state); the last Massachusetts native Wild Turkey was killed in 1851.
As Turkeys became scarcer and scarcer nationwide, many states tried to reintroduce the birds to their historic habitats. According to Mass Wildlife, between 1911 and 1967, at least 9 unsuccessful attempts were made to restore Turkeys to Massachusetts. At first, they tried to release farm Turkeys, not wild ones, but those birds did not survive. “In 1937, the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, also known as the Pittman-Robertson Act, provided much-needed funding for wildlife studies and restoration. With the additional resources, wildlife management methods improved and new capture techniques provided a safe and effective means for live-capture of birds (Wild Turkeys) for translocating to new areas.”
Biologists like Jim Carodoza, who led the Turkey Game and Upland Game Project at Mass Wildlife during the 1970s, began to explore the idea of live-trapping Wild Turkeys from southwestern New York. They would sit in their trucks for hours waiting for the Wild Turkeys to follow a trail of cracked corn, oats, and wheat to an open pasture. Once a gaggle of 20 or so had gathered, the biologists fired an enormous 2600 square foot net to capture the Turkeys.
By the early 1970s, 37 Wild Turkeys had been live trapped in the Adirondacks and released in Berkshire County. By autumn of 1978, the Massachusetts Turkey population had grown to about 1,000 birds. Mass Wildlife biologists and volunteers began live-trapping Turkeys from the growing flocks, transporting them to other areas of the state with suitable habitat. A total of 26 releases of 561 birds made in 10 counties took place between 1979 and 1996.
In just over fifty years, the Turkey population of Massachusetts has grown from that first 37 introduced birds to an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 Turkeys!
Turkey was served at the first Thanksgiving although, according to the journals of Pilgrims, it was one of many game birds served that day.
Aren’t the young ones beautiful! Newly hatched baby Turkeys are called poults, juvenile males called jakes, and juvenile females, jennies.
Happy Thanksgiving and travel safely <3
xxKim
Turkey Mating Season!
Turkey boys in full display, with their stunning feathers and faces only Mama’s could love <3
TURKEYS IN THE MORNING LIGHT
Lucky chance encounter this Thanksgiving morning!
Turkeys at daybreak, doing what Turkeys do when it’s not mating season. The males were foraging and preening in one group, while the females were across the way. The girls were very interested in the milkweed seed pods. I don’t think they were eating the seeds, but finding insects around the pods. The brilliant iridescence in the male’s feathers was extra beautiful in the morning light. 
GOOD MORNING! BROUGHT TO YOU BY MISS SNOWY OWL (AND SNOW BUNTINGS, AND TURKEYS, TOO)
A fresh-faced and sleepy-eyed Miss Snowy Owl, a flock of Snow Buntings, and a gang of turkeys made for a beautiful morning ❤
The Snow Buntings were too far away to get a good snapshot, but it is wonderful to see their return to Massachusetts from summer nesting grounds in the high Arctic.
Stirring up the leaf litter with their feet.
A great gang of Wild Turkeys (approximately three dozen!), of mixed age, were foraging amongst the leaf litter, using their big feet to kick up the leaves. The first-hatch year poults stayed more to the center of the flock, while the older hens were foraging at the perimeter.
Exquisite iridescence in Wild Turkey feathers.
Turkey Bromance
Conferring
From far across the marsh, large brown moving shapes were spotted. I just had to pull over to investigate and was happily surprised to see a flock of perhaps a dozen male turkeys all puffed up and struttin’ their stuff. I headed over to the opposite side of the marsh in hopes of getting a closer look at what was going on.
Turkey hen foraging
Found along the edge, where the marsh met the woodlands, were the objects of desire. A flock of approximately an equal number of hens were foraging for insects and vegetation in the sun-warmed moist earth.
Males begin exhibiting mating behavior as early as late February and courtship was full underway on this unusually warm February morning. The funny thing was, the toms were not fighting over the hens, as you might imagine. Instead the males seemed to be paired off, bonded to each other and working together, strategically placing themselves in close proximity to the females. A series of gobbles and calls from the males closest to the females set off a chain reaction of calls to the toms less close. The last to respond were the toms furthest away from the females, the ones still in the marsh. It was utterly fascinating to watch and I tried to get as much footage as possible while standing as stone still for as long as is humanly possible.
With much curiosity, and as soon as a spare moment was found, I read several interesting articles on the complex social behavior of Wild Turkeys and it is true, the males were bromancing, as much as they were romancing.
Ninety percent of all birds form some sort of male-female bond. From my reading I learned that Wild Turkeys do not. The females nest and care for the poults entirely on her own. The dominant male in a pair, and the less dominant of the two, will mate with the same female. Wild Turkey male bonding had been observed for some time however, the female can hold sperm for up to fifty days, so without DNA testing it was difficult to know who was the parent of her offspring. DNA tests show that the eggs are often fertilized by more than one male. This behavior insures greater genetic diversity. And it has been shown that bromancing males produce a proportionately greater number of offspring than males that court on their own. Poult mortality is extremely high. The Wild Turkey bromance mating strategy produces a greater number of young and is nature’s way of insuring future generations.
The snood is the cone shaped bump on the crown of the tom’s head (see below).
The wattle (or dewlap) is the flap of skin under the beak. Caruncles are the wart-like bumps covering the tom’s head. What are referred to as the “major” caruncles are the large growths that lie beneath the wattle. When passions are aroused, the caruncles become engorged, turning brilliant red, and the snood is extended. The snood can grow twelve inches in a matter of moments. In the first photo below you can see the snood draped over the beak and in the second, a tom with an even longer snood.
It’s all in the snood, the longer the snood, the more attractive the female finds the male.
Male Turkey not puffed up and snood retracted.
A young male turkey is called a jake and its beard is usually not longer than a few inches. The longer the beard, generally speaking, the older the turkey.
Male Wild Turkey, with beard and leg spurs.
Male Wild Turkeys with snood extended (foreground) and snood retracted (background).
When the butt end is prettier than the front end.
In case you are unsure on how to tell the difference between male (called tom or gobbler) and female (hen), compare the top two photos. The tom has a snood, large caruncles, carunculate (bumpy) skin around the face, and a pronounced beard. The hen does not. Gobblers also have sharp spurs on the back of their legs and hens do not.
Read more here:
http://www.alankrakauer.org/?p=1108
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/03/02_turkeys.shtml
http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/dfg/dfw/fish-wildlife-plants/wild-turkey-faq.html
Struttin’ His Stuff
A face only a Mother could love ~
Male turkey’s faces are brilliantly colored red, white, and blue and change color depending on what mood. A solid white head indicates the most excited.
There were three males courting in this group, with one being the dominant Tom. To attract the females, the males were spreading their tail feathers (called strutting) and spitting. Group courtship like this usually takes place after the winter months in March and April, when they are still flocked together.
Tom and Hen Eastern Wild Turkey
Anatomy of a Turkey Head
1) Caruncles
2) Snood
3) Wattle (dewlap)
4) Major caruncle
5) Beard
Notice the small light tan colored holes to the right of the eye in both the above photo and the top photo. That is the Tom’s ears with which he can hear quite well.
The photo below is not tack sharp so I almost didn’t post however, it demonstrates that this turkey is comparatively more excited as his face is more white and blue than the turkey in the first photo. And you can see the ear quite clearly in this photo, too.
Domestic turkey photo courtesy wiki.
Baby TurKey Encounter!
A baby turkey is called a poult.
Where was the Tom?
This little turkey family seemed so vulnerable. Although blending well with the surrounding vegetation, the hen was disabled. She was only able to half walk, half hop. Despite her injury, she kept close watch over the babies as they foraged. I was especially surprised that no Tom came charging to protect the flock, which has been my experience with past turkey encounters.
Turkey Hen and Poults
Cherry Street Gang
Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)
I find it fascinating that the turkeys populating Cape Ann are descended from wild-trapped New York birds. By 1851, the Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) was extirpated from Massachusetts because of widespread loss of habitat and hunting. Nine unsuccessful attempts to reestablish the birds were made between 1911 and 1967. Between 1972 and 1973, 37 birds were released in Berkshire County. The bird’s range quickly expanded, establishing populations from the western to the furthest eastern regions of Massachusetts. To read more about the Wild Turkey visit the Massachusetts Audubon Breeding Bird Atlas