Wild Turkey
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The Wild Turkey (Meleagris
gallopavo) is native to North
America and is the heaviest member
of the Galliformes. It is one of two
species of turkey, the other being
the Ocellated Turkey, found in
Central and South America. Adult
Wild Turkeys have a small,
featherless, reddish head that can
change to blue in minutes; a red
throat in males; long reddish-orange
to greyish-blue legs; and a
dark-brown to black body. The head
has fleshy growths called caruncles;
in excited turkeys, a fleshy flap on
the bill expands, becoming engorged
with blood. Males have red wattles
on the throat and neck. Each foot
has four toes, and males have rear
spurs on their lower legs. Male wild
turkeys have breast feathers tipped
with black. Their heads and necks
are blue-gray with pink wattles.
During spring display, their
foreheads are white, while their
face is bright blue and their neck
is scarlet. They have spurs on their
legs, and on older birds they have
long and obvious beards. Female wild
turkeys have breast feathers tipped
with brown, gray or white. Their
heads have small feathers and they
have small beards, if any at all.
Turkeys are surprisingly agile
fliers, they are very cautious birds
and will fly or run at the first
sign of danger. In flight they can
reach a speed of 50 miles per hour.
They usually fly close to the ground
for no more than a quarter mile.
Turkeys have many vocalizations:
"gobbles," "clucks," "putts,"
"purrs," "yelps," "cutts," "whines,"
"cackles," and "kee-kees." In early
spring, male turkeys, also called
gobblers or toms, gobble to announce
their presence to females and
competing males.
Turkeys have a long, dark,
fan-shaped tail and glossy bronze
wings. As with many other species of
the Galliformes, turkeys exhibit
strong sexual dimorphism. The male
is substantially larger than the
female, and his feathers have areas
of red, purple, green, copper,
bronze, and gold iridescence. Female
feathers are duller overall, in
shades of brown and gray. Parasites
can dull coloration of both sexes;
in males, coloration may serve as a
signal of health.[2] The primary
wing feathers have white bars.
The Wild Turkey feeds on nuts,
seeds, fruit, insects, buds, fern
fronds and salamanders. They live in
hardwood forests with scattered
openings, swamps, mesquite
grasslands, ponderosa pines and
chaparral.
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