The Turkey Project Gavin, Rebeccah gavin.b.burns18@gmail.com day 83 12/14/2017 Even the name of these absurd birds raises questions, who named the turkey? I have had a few turkey experiences myself, they travel through my neighborhood often walking their silly gait. Turkeys trotting through our yard pleases my grandfather. My grandfather loves to see turkeys, he often randomly says, Turkey! What amuses me the most is that even though they have fat, round bodies, they are truly fast! Though, I m startled with the notion that the main public don t know enough about these exceptional birds.
(Areas they inhabit in America.) The Turkey (meleagris gallopavo) is Native to the majestic North America. The turkey first got its name from Europeans who discovered them in Mexico, Then they later imported them first to the Mediterranean, then to Europe in 1524. The turkey was domesticated in the late 15 th century in Europe where they were first called it turkey fowl, and by the early 16th century the word turkey was a part of the English language. Males are called toms, and females are called hens. They are the bulkiest of the galliformes, a group of ground eating birds like chickens. Turkeys are omnivores and travel in flocks, and weigh at an average of 5.5 to 18.8 lbs. Turkey s live 3 to 4 years. There are five sub-species which has slightly different plumage and ranges: Eastern, Osceola, Rio Grande, Merriam s and Gould s, which have slightly different plumage and ranges. Turkeys live in groups that can be called
a crop, dole, gang, posse, and raffles. The Turkey prefers to live in hardwood forests with many exits around them like fields, pastures and sometimes marshes. They can adapt to almost any plant and any forest in North America, as long there is cover and plenty of escape routes are present. Turkeys like to be close to a good water source like a river, and enjoy sleeping in Cypress trees. Turkeys have been heard making some very unique sounds described as gobbling, clucking, putting, purring, yelping, cuttsing, whining, cackling, and kee-keesing. Males also make a low drumming sound by the air in the air sack in the male s chest, not unlike the booming of a prairie chicken. Male Turkeys also spit, which is done by sharply getting rid of all the air in the chest sack below the tom s throat. Their gobbles can be heard a mile or more away. Turkeys heads can also change color with sudden emotion. Their heads can be red, (pink) white or blue. When they are excited, their head and neck is a solid white.
Being omnivores, turkeys eat a wide variety of plants and animals. Turkeys often scour the ground or climb shrubs and, small trees to eat. They often eat; nuts, acorns, such as from hazel, chestnut, hickory, and pinyon pine. Turkeys also devour amphibians and little reptiles like lizards. They also root for roots, seeds off bird feeders, in fields after harvest and cow pastures. They eat grasses too. In the spring males are polygamous, which means they mate as many hens as they possibly can. To make a display for hens, males spread out their tail puffing up as much as they can and dragging their wings. When males do this, it s called strutting. Their head are colored with red, blue and white. The turkey s head also changes color when strutting. To show their social dominance, they strut, make booming like sounds and spit. There courting behavior is a lot like a peacock, and they use their snood the bright red patch of hanging skin to attract hens, like the bright snood on top of their beaks and a
wiggling wattle under their beaks, according to National Wildlife Federation blog. Sometimes turkeys go together in pairs and court a hen. The pairs of turkeys that court together often are close relatives, as half their genetic material is the same. The supposition behind the courting team is that the less dominant male would have a better chance at sharing genetic material than alone. Finally, when mating is finished, the female searches for a perfect nesting site. Nests are small dirt depressions with vegetation around it. The hens lay ten to fourteen eggs, on average one every day. The eggs are incubated for at least twenty-eight days. The pullets leave the nest around twelve to twentyfour hours after hatching. There is a wide variety of predators who enjoy turkey eggs such as raccoons, Virginia possums, groundhogs, gopher and pine snakes, many different hawks, raptors and bald eagles. The predators that hunt both adults and pullets are: coyotes, gray wolves, bobcats, cougars, golden eagles and sometimes, black bears. They are also vulnerable to other predators like red foxes, great horned owls, northern goshawk and domestic animals like dogs and cats. The
leading turkey predator is the human, who still celebrates thanksgiving stuffing themselves with turkey. When predators are close, turkeys usually run although though they are capable of flying short distances. When adult turkeys are trapped they will fight off predators, despite the feathers and big curved bodies of toms and hens, they are quiet aggressive. Fighting turkeys will kick -- using the spurs on the back of their chicken-like legs, bite and peck with their beak, and ramming their assailant with their bulbous frame. Hens sometimes chase away hawks in flight when their pullets are being threatened. Turkeys are aggressive and very protective if you come in to their personal space, so beware of walking up and gobbling at these creatures. The turkey has five senses that will be list in order of importance. 1- Vision: Turkeys are able to identify movement and detail very quickly. They rely on their vision when wind is high, and hearing is affected with the wind. Turkeys have monocular vision, meaning their eyes are on the sides of their heads. Turkeys turn their head so they can
see directly ahead, and thus have 360-degree vision, due to the fact that they are able to rotate their head to such an extent. 2- Hearing: Turkeys have a quiet a knack for locating sounds if they hear something they immediately look in the direction of the sound, allowing them to react quickly. Observation in the field suggests turkeys hear lower frequency sounds that humans cannot hear as clearly. 3- Touch: Touch is used mostly for eating for example, like on a nut prompts the bird to stop and eat. 4- Taste: Wild turkeys have the same basic tastes as humans, sweet, salty, bitter and sour. Their taste quality is lower because turkeys have less taste buds then humans. Taste doesn t isn t used often because all the turkey does with taste is spit out extremely bitter tasting food. 5- Smell: Smells are understood by the forepart of the turkey s brain. The nose lobes on the turkey are very small, which means that the turkeys sense of smell is weak and unimportant. Having a weak sense of smell is common in most birds.
Did you know turkeys are incredibly fast? They can run 25 miles per hour! To put this in perspective Usain Bolts top speed is 27.8 miles per hour, the difference is only 2.8 mph! (Euro Sport) This agile, round birds survived extinction in the 1930s. Clearly, they are quite resilient. Did you know that Benjamin Franklin wanted them to be the national bird? They are truly marvelous birds. Biblography: Wikipedia contributors. "Wild turkey." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2 Dec. 2017. Web. 11 Dec. 2017. Wikipedia contributors. "Wild turkey." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2 Dec. 2017. Web. 11 Dec. 2017. Quarrell, Dan. How fast does Usain Bolt run in mph/km per hour? Is he the fastest recorded human ever? 100m record? Eurosport. Eurosport, 20 Dec. 2016. Web. 11 Dec. 2017. Coyle, Kevin. Twelve Unusual and Fascinating Facts About Wild Turkeys. National Wildlife Federation. National Wildlife Federation 20 Nov. 2011. Web. 11 Dec 2017.
Scott, Cassie. Five Senses of the Wild Turkey. National Wild Turkey Federation. National Wild Turkey Federation, unknown. Web. 11 Dec. 2017. National Geographic. Wild Turkey. National Geographic. National Geographic, unknown. Web. 11 Dec. 2017.