With a vibrant spectrum of color-changing mood-ring-like wattles, snoods, and featherless heads resembling tiny unicorns, what’s not to love about the Wild Turkey?
Simply saying their body parts put a smile on your face.
The Wild Turkey is often overlooked as one of our beautiful, charismatic birds. They’re gentle creatures and enjoy socializing with their human companions, forming strong social bonds, showing affection towards one another, and protecting other members of their flock.
Yes, the Wild Turkey is a big game bird, like the quail, pheasant, grouse, bobwhite, and partridge, but being put in this category of birds should not detract from the Wild Turkey’s appeal and beauty.
And don’t be fooled by their size because Wild Turkeys can bolt, comparable to speeds reached by sprinter Usain Bolt during his world-record 100-meter dash in 2009. The Wild Turkey can run as fast as 35 MPH and fly as quickly as 55 MPH. The fastest any human has run is about 27½ MPH.
Iridescent Feathers
You’re missing out if you’ve never seen a Wild Turkey up close in the sunlight.
From a distance, male turkeys (Toms) are dark-colored with highly iridescent feathers, and females (hens) look dullish brown. But the magic happens when you see these birds up close in sunlight. Hues of bronze, copper, red, green, and gold burst from their feathers.
If you see a Wild Turkey in flight, its chestnut tail feathers framed with a black and white outline are striking. It’s always a joy finding a tail feather on the ground because they’re so easy to identify.
All the World’s a Stage
Males put on quite a display to impress the ladies by puffing their body feathers, raising their tail feathers into a vertical fan, and strutting with their wingtips dragging on the ground.
Of course, a turkey’s persona is not complete without the gobble. Males strut their stuff, gobble to captivate the girls, and warn other Toms to get off their turf.
Gobbles are not the only way turkeys communicate. They make up to 27 calls, including chucks, yelps, and purrs.
Spectrum of Colors
Wild Turkeys have a distinct look, unlike other birds. They have featherless heads, like Turkey Vultures and Black Vultures, with a loose flap of skin dangling underneath the chin called a wattle. The birds’ head and throat colors change according to their moods and are often compared to mood rings.
A turkey’s head and throat turn blue when the bird is calm, bright red when stressed, angry, or excited, and a combination of red, white, and blue when the bird is content.
So, what causes the color change? Blood vessels directly under the turkey’s skin. When a turkey’s emotions change, the blood vessels contract, changing how the incoming light scatters and reflects off the turkey’s skin.
One of the Wild Turkey’s enduring characteristics is the bird’s snood.
The snood is a fleshy protuberance sitting atop the turkey’s head. Males and females have snoods, but the male turkey’s snood is much longer hanging over its bill.
Snoods are like the turkey’s head and change color depending on the bird’s mood. The colors become their brightest during mating season or interaction with other males.
We give thanks to these intelligent and inquisitive animals. Wild Turkeys have a playful side, like cats and dogs, complementing their unique personalities.
Wattles, snoods, and color-changing heads are all unique attributes, but these birds had me at gobble, gobble.
Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!
If you enjoy this story, please subscribe to our site and follow our YouTube channel to enjoy our bird videos. And please check out our online shop. It’s filled with handmade gifts inspired by birds and nature. We donate to bird and wildlife organizations for every item sold.
Comments
Loading…