D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
November 2010
A Bird to Be Thankful For
There's more to the wild turkey than drumsticks.
Story and photos by Jay W. Sharp
While I love and cherish our birds and animals, both domestic and wild, I've never had the slightest compunction about gobbling up a turkey. In fact, I eat that fancily feathered fiend with absolute gleefulness.
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A wild turkey gobbler at the El Paso Zoo; note head features and leg
barb. (Photo by Jay W. Sharp) |
The roots of this psychological aberration date back about 70 years ago, when I was around five years old. I was sitting alone on a stump out by the barn at my grandmother's home, on a 1,000-acre farm up in the Rolling Plains of Texas. I was considering the profundities of life when I noticed that one of her turkey gobblers was eyeing me as if he thought I was a big juicy grasshopper. I tried to stare him down. He stalked closer. I held my ground courageously. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, that bird lit into me and began to flog me like I was another turkey gobbler, sending me running and howling to the house for rescue.
Ever since then, I've taken my revenge by eating up turkeys every holiday season.
Distinctive Features
In addition to the farm-raised turkeys that populate supermarkets this time of year, wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) also populate many of New Mexico's mountain ranges. The largest of New Mexico's, indeed, North America's, game birds, the wild turkey is, says David Allen Sibley in The Sibley Guide to Birds, dark with [a] heavy dark body, incongrously joined to a thin neck, small head, and long legs. On average, the mature male, according to Sibley, measures about four feet in length, from the tip of its beak to the tip of its tail. Its wings span five feet or more. It weighs about 16 or so pounds, often more. The largest on record, according to the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF), weighed 37 pounds. The mature female, considerably thinner, has a length and wingspan roughly three-quarters that of the male.
According to the NWTF, the gobbler has a body covered with 5,000 to 6,000 predominantly "iridescent red, green, copper, bronze and gold feathers," which he shows pompously when strutting during breeding season. The hen, much more demure, has drab grayish or brownish feathers, which she uses for the practical purpose of camouflaging herself when she nests.
While it may vary with the season, the gobbler's featherless head and neck typically has a white crown, a yellowish bill and a patchy red to bluish to whitish neck. He has a fleshy red protuberance called a "snood" between his bill and his eyes; another, called a "dewlap," between his bill and throat; and others, called "caruncles," beneath his throat. He also has a "beard," or a cluster of long hairlike feathers, that hangs several inches from the center of his chest. (The largest wild turkey beard on record, says the NWTF, measured 18 inches.) The female has a much more subtly colored, bluish to grayish head and fleshy protuberances. Usually, she has no beard. Both the male and female have keen eyesight and excellent hearing.
The wild turkey has powerful wings and legs, which give it surprising mobility. With its rounded and amply feathered wings, it can fly almost straight up — launching itself with two or three steps and a couple of hops — then away, at speeds approaching 60 miles per hour for short distances. With its sturdy legs — heavily barbed in the male — it can run, says the NWTF, as fast as 25 miles per hour.
The male usually has some 18 large tail feathers, which he spreads out in a splendid vertical fan when he sets out to attract a female.
The wild turkey has a surprisingly large vocabulary. The bird, according to authority Stephen W. Eaton, writing for Birds of North America, issues distinctive calls to, for instance: assemble a flock, maintain flock spacing, declare a descending flight, signal a predator alarm, challenge a competitor, assert dominance, serenade a prospective mate, announce hatchings, summon hatchlings, and advertise a newly discovered rich food source. Sometimes, the bird, apparently, produces Pavarotti-like calls just for the hell of it or maybe just to make life challenging for would-be turkey-callers.
Local Wild Turkey Species
Of the six subspecies of wild turkeys that range across various parts of the North American continent, two — the Merriam's and the Gould's — occur in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona, according to the NWTF.
The Merriam's wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo merriami) — by far the most numerous of the two in our area — prefers the one-seed juniper and pion pine woodlands of the lower mountain slopes and the ponderosa pine forests of the higher elevations. It may migrate with the seasons between the woodlands and the forests. It is characterized by iridescent deep-black back and rump feathers, off-white lower back feathers and showy off-white-tipped tail feathers. The male has black-tipped breast feathers; the female, buff-tipped breast feathers and lighter-colored wings.
The Gould's wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo Mexicana), with only small numbers extending up from Mexico's much larger population and into the mountains, especially the Peloncillas, of New Mexico's Bootheel, looks much like the Merriam's. It is, however, somewhat larger. (In fact, it is the largest of the wild turkeys, with "longer legs, larger feet and larger center tail feathers," according to the NWTF.) It has lighter-colored back and rump feathers, with copper and greenish-golden reflections. It has even showier, whiter and larger tips on its tail feathers. It has probably been studied less than any of the other subspecies in the United States.
Diet
The wild turkey, says Eaton, usually forages on the ground with its flock, sometimes "line-abreast with [a] hen near [the] center." Almost like a teenager learning to dance, the bird scratches once with one foot, twice with the second foot, once again with the first foot, then steps backward to see what delicacies it has turned up.
Our Merriam's and Gould's wild turkeys feed largely on grass and broadleaf plant seeds, various fruits and nuts, insects and, occasionally, small reptiles such as lizards and snakes. They favor plants such as the manzanita, juniper, wild grapes, wild onions, skunkbush, oaks and pion pine. (I suspect they have a particular fondness for a big juicy grasshopper.)
Behavior and Life Cycle
In search of avian luxury, the wild turkey stretches its wings indolently then beats them vigorously. It dusts itself in decayed logs and even ant hills, using its beak to rake loose material toward its body, then using its wings and feet to flap and kick the material up into its feathers. It suns itself by lying on one side and extending its upper wing and leg to expose its body to the warming sunlight. Near twilight, it gathers with its flock beneath a substantial tree, and with the other birds, it ascends in concert into the lower branches. It then climbs upward, individually, to find its very own perfect roosting spot.
Through the seasons, the bird gathers in flocks with varying makeups and changeable hierarchies, or politician-like "pecking orders," with the dominant individuals at the top and the lesser at the bottom. According to Eaton, a flock may "fight as a unit against other bands and move up or down in flock rank as a unit."