Eastern Wild Turkeys

For Throwback Thursday - and Thanksgiving - I figured I should show a couple of the wild cousins of our Domestic Turkeys, Eastern Wild Turkeys. These 2 were selected because the pictures came out well.

The 1st picture is 1 of the few pictures I've gotten of an male turkey (a tom) [1]. The prominent snood above his beak, the bright red wattle under the beak, the nearly-as-red caruncles next to the wattle, and the vicious-looking spur seen on the back of the forward leg all indicate this to be a male. (Males also have a beard, but I think the angle is wrong to see that.)

June 4, 2017 at Duke Farms
Photo 8423439, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

A little more recently I saw this female turkey (hen). Though females do have snoods (you can see it if you look closely), wattles (you should be able to see it, though it's not as prominent as the 1 on the male above), caruncles (hard to see here, maybe because of the lighting), and a leg spur (I'm told it's there on females, but difficult to notice, like in this picture), all these features should be easier to see on a male.

As I recall, this particular turkey hen noticed that NJ Audubon was leaving out free food in the bird feeders. Usually if something like a crow or a Pileated Woodpecker shows up at a bird feeder, their large size immediately puts them at the top of the pecking order. I can only imagine what the other birds thought when a Wild Turkey showed up [2].

June 1, 2019 at Scherman Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary
Photo 41194437, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

[1] In most bird species where the adults exhibit sexual dimorphism, the juveniles of both sexes resemble adult females.

[2] It's possible this is less disruptive than I think. Turkeys generally forage on the ground, so it's possible that this turkey was just eating spillage from the bird feeders above. On the ground they'd most just intimidate the Mourning Doves and Eastern Chipmunks

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