Wild Turkey

     The Wild Turkey is a large bird native to North America. It mainly inhabits woods, mountain forests and wooded swamps (best Wild turkey’s habitat includes a mixture of woodland and open clearings). The Wild turkey is the same species as the domestic Turkey, which was originally derived from a southern Mexican subspecies of the Wild turkey.

     Wild Turkeys have black feathers with a coppery sheen that becomes more complex in adult males, and long reddish-yellow to greyish-green legs. Stags have large featherless reddish heads, red throats, and red wattles on their throats and necks. Wild hens have duller plumage overall, in shades of brown and grey.

     Wild Turkeys forage mostly by walking on the ground for acorns, leaves, seeds, grains, berries, buds, insects and sometimes they eat frogs, lizards and snakes. In spring, courting males puff themselves into feathery balls and fill the air with exuberant gobbling. One male will mate with several females, and the Wild Turkey’s nest usually is on the ground. It is often built at a base of tree, under shrub, or in tall grass. Wild hens usually lay 10 – 15, white to pale-buff, dotted with reddish brown eggs, and sometimes more than one female will lay their eggs in one nest. The incubation is done by the female only and lasts approximately for 28 days. Downy poults leave nest soon after hatching and female rears them for several weeks. Young Turkeys can make short flights at age of 1-2 weeks, but they are sexually mature after several months.

     The Wild turkey’s popularity at the table led to a drastic decline in its numbers, but luckily they have recovered and now occur in every state of the USA except Alaska.