<< Back 11/26/03 The Naturalist's Corner By Don Hendershot Calling Thanksgiving “Turkey Day” is kinda like calling the games in the coliseum “Slave Day.” While slaves did and turkeys still do contribute greatly to the above events, they garnered few rewards. It seems apparent that American Indians provided the turkey for what many call the “first” Thanksgiving back in 1621. However, some of the English colonists may have already been familiar with the wild turkey’s butterball domestic cousin. The Spanish had already taken turkeys back to Europe. The Aztecs were apparently domesticating them. The English confused the bird from Mexico with another fowl being imported from Africa, by way of Turkey, and called this newcomer turkey. The butterball that most American families gorge themselves with on Thanksgiving has very little in common with its wild cousin. Hundreds of years of domestication and hybridizing have created a squat, fat, often white fowl that is quite different from the sleek, trim, ebony wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo. While the wild turkey can reach speeds of nearly 20 mph on the ground and 50 mph in the air, its domestic cousin is left to wattle around on the ground and most can’t fly at all because of their mutant large breasts. The wild turkey is in the family Phasianidae that includes the grouse and pheasant. The turkey is a large bird reaching more than three feet in length and weighing up to 30 pounds. Average weight is probably 20 pounds for toms (males) and 10-12 pounds for hens. When the Pilgrims got here they found five subspecies of wild turkey ranging across most of the continental U.S. However, due to habitat destruction and over hunting, primarily by commercial hunters, the wild turkey was on the brink of extinction by the early 1930s. Efforts to save the turkey, spearheaded by hunting and wildlife restoration organizations have proved quite successful. It is estimated that only about 30,000 wild turkeys remained in the U.S. after the Great Depression. That number has grown to nearly six million today. Of the five subspecies, the eastern, which is found across Western North Carolina, is the most common. It ranges throughout the eastern half of the U.S. The Osceola subspecies is found only on the Florida peninsula. The Rio Grande subspecies ranges through Texas and into Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado. The Merriam’s ranges along the Rocky Mountains and the Gould’s is found from the southernmost parts of Arizona and New Mexico into Mexico. Toms are more richly colored than hens and have a reddish-blue face. Toms also have a beard (a long hair-like appendage) that protrudes from the chest and spurs up to two inches long. During breeding season the toms put on a dazzling display, fanning their large tail feathers, puffing out their chests and dragging their wings. Turkeys form flocks in the winter. Mature toms flock together and hens, young hens and jakes (young males) flock together. Flocks begin to break up with the advent of spring and mating season. While late April is the peak of gobbling season, it must be driven by a sense of urgency, because by this time most hens have already laid their eggs. Hens lay a clutch of 10 to 12 eggs in a nest scratched out in the ground. Eggs incubate for about four weeks. The just-hatched poults are ready to leave the nest in 12 to 24 hours in search of food. Turkeys are classified as generalists in regards to diet. Their diet is about 75 percent vegetative, including seeds, fruits and tender emerging shoots and 25 percent animal, including insects, snails, worms, etc. Wild turkeys roost in trees and toms often gobble from the roost before they set out for the day. And there must be some kind of interaction between turkeys and barred owls. One way to locate toms is to go out at dawn and call (or play a tape) like a barred owl. If there is a gobbler within earshot, he’ll let you know it. I’ll think about “tom terrific” tomorrow when I ladle out the grilled tofurky and gravy over the mashed potatoes and cornbread dressing, and I will give a little thanks to those whose efforts saved this magnificent woodland bird from extinction. (Don Hendershot can be reached ddihen@juno.com)