Wild turkey

[ MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO ]

The only bird from the Western Hemisphere to reach global importance as a food source through domestication, the turkey is comfortable around people. Stalk one in the wild, however, and it’s a completely different creature. Wily and intelligent, wild turkeys flee when people approach in areas where they are hunted. In suburbia they are less suspicious and may openly gather in flocks of up to 200 birds as they forage for seeds and acorns. During winter, males and females live in separate groups, but by late January males begin gobbling and strutting to attract harems of females.

NATURAL HISTORY

Introduced to California from the southwestern and eastern United States in 1877, turkeys are found throughout the Sierra Nevada and scattered locations in the coastal ranges. Virtually nothing is known about their effects on native species.

KEY CHARACTERISTICS

This large, familiar bird shows many colorful iridescent feathers. In the breeding season, males develop a ridiculous looking “snood” that hangs like an inflamed appendix down their faces; they also have scraggly “beards” of thread-like feathers

poking from their chests.