North American Wild Turkey Habitats: Dark Body, Hollow Nest, Pale Egg

Summary: North American wild turkey habitats in coastal, inland, rural, urban Canada, Mexico and the United States cover hollowed nests, pale eggs and dark bodies.

Four states (Alabama, 1980; Massachusetts, 1991; Oklahoma, 1990; South Carolina, 1976) recognize wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) as their state game bird; pair of wild tom turkeys in Sacramento, northern Central Valley, northern California; Sunday, March 18, 2007, 12:33:55: Harry Morse/California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CaliforniaDFW), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American wild turkey habitats attract cultivators through crustacean, insect and vegetation control, hunters through profitable game and naturalists through year-round distribution ranges from Canada southward through the United States to Mexico.

Wild turkeys bear the common subspecies names eastern, Gould's, Merriam's, Osceola, Rio Grande and South Mexican wild turkeys and the scientific name Meleagris gallopavo (guinea-fowl rooster-peacock). Agro-industry, overgrazed livestock, reduction of oak forests and residential development challenge wild turkeys, described in 1758 by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778). Bumpy-necked, fan-tailed, iridescent-bodied, long-necked, pink-silver-gray-legged, round-winged Galliformes game-bird family members with brown- or white-tipped tails and downward-curved bills draw into 50- to 500-member flocks in winter.

One- to 13-year lifespans endure dry scrub and subtropical forests even though they expect cropland, grassland, hardwoods and scrub near lakes, ponds, springs, streams or swamps.

January through April furnish opportunities for brooding one 8- to 20-egg clutch sometimes found in nest-sharing arrangements with the eggs of the polygamous father's other mates.

Mothers-to-be gather dead leaves into linings for hollow, shallow depressions on the ground amid tangled undergrowth, beside fallen trunks, in thickets or under bushes or logs. Nest interiors 12 inches (30.48 centimeters) in diameter house 1.9- to 2.7-inch (4.83- to 6.86-centimeter) by 1.6- to 1.9-inch (4.06- to 4.83-centimeter), oval to elliptical eggs. Mothers-to-be never involve their mates in 28-day incubations of dark-, light- or purple-brown-dotted, non- to semi-glossy, pink- or red-spotted buff, cream, ocher, tan or yellowish eggs.

Agro-industry, livestock, predatory bobcats, coyotes, eagles, foxes, mountain lions, opossums, owls, people, raccoons, skunks, snakes and woodchucks and urban sprawl jeopardize North American wild turkey habitats.

Mother-brooded, mother-guarded, white-throated hatchlings know brown-spotted crowns and upper-parts, pinkish-buff to yellowish sides of heads and underparts, pinkish-cinnamon down on backs, flanks, heads and upper breasts and white throats.

Almost immediately functional buffy-pink feet and legs, brown-gray bills and open eyes launch wild turkey nestlings into branch-roosting, self-feeding and soil-to-tree flights two weeks after hatching. Nestlings manage feeding and walking 24 hours after hatching and female and male poults manifest physical independence in four-plus months and sexual maturity within 10 months. Adults need alfalfa, bluegrass, blue-stem, needle-grass, panic-grass, rye, seaside oat and wheat-grass seeds, burdock, fern and moss fronds, insects, millipedes, prickly pears, salamanders, snails and spiders.

Three-hundred- to 2,500-foot (91.44- to 762-meter) altitudes above sea level offer North American wild turkey habitats temperatures above minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 34.44 degrees Celsius).

Wild turkeys prefer oaks with northern pines, southeastern bald-cypress, loblolly, pond and slash pines and tupelo-gums, southwestern junipers and pinyons and western Douglas-firs and ponderosa pines.

Acacia, arrowwood, ash, aspen, basswood, beech, birch, black cherry, cedar, cottonwood, elm, hackberry, hawthorn, hemlock, hickory, maple, mesquite, mountain-mahogany, pecan and sumac qualify as additional favorites. Bearded breasts, blue-red heads and red-wattled necks reveal males, called gobblers, among wild turkeys with black-banded rusty tails, black-white barred under-wings and hump-backed, iridescent bronze bodies. Running leaps into loud flights and glides at 88 miles (141.62 kilometers) per hour suggest the 4- to 5-foot (1.22- to 1.52-meter) wingspan of wild turkeys.

North American wild turkey habitats tender 10- to 24-pound (4.53- to 10.89-kilogram), 2.75- to 4-foot (0.84- to 1.22-meter) clucking, purring, yelping female and gobbling male turkeys.

wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) eggs in nest in Ottawa, southeastern Ontario, east central Canada; Friday, May 21, 2010, 15:17: D. Gordon E. Robertson (Dger), CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Four states (Alabama, 1980; Massachusetts, 1991; Oklahoma, 1990; South Carolina, 1976) recognize wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) as their state game bird; pair of wild tom turkeys in Sacramento, northern Central Valley, northern California; Sunday, March 18, 2007, 12:33:55: Harry Morse/California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CaliforniaDFW), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/californiadfg/21038518456/

wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) eggs in nest in Ottawa, southeastern Ontario, east central Canada; Friday, May 21, 2010, 15:17: D. Gordon E. Robertson (Dger), CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wild_Turkey_nest_and_eggs.jpg

For further information:

Baicich, Paul J.; and Harrison, Colin J.O. 2005. Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds. Second Edition. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, Princeton Field Guides.

Gould, John. 8 April 1856. "On a New Turkey, Meleagris Mexicana." Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, part XXIV: 61-63. London UK: Longman, Brown, Green and Longman.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/12860587

Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia, 2nd edition. Volumes 8-11, Birds I-IV, edited by Michael Hutchins, Jerome A. Jackson, Walter J. Bock and Donna Olendorf. Farmington Hills MI: Gale Group, 2002.

Linneaus, Carl. 1758. "Meleagris gallopavo." Systema Naturæ: 156-157. Editio Decima, Reformata. Holmaie [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/727063

Nelson, Edward William. 1900. "Meleagris gallopavo merriami." The Auk, vol. XVII: 120-123. New York NY: L.S. Foster.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/15942991

Peterson, Alan P., M.D. "Meleagris gallopavo Linnaeus 1758." Zoonomen: Zoological Nomenclature Resource > Birds of the World -- Current Valid Scientific Avian Names > Galliformes > Phasianidae > Meleagridinae.
Available @ http://www.zoonomen.net/avtax/gall.html

Scott, William Earle Dodge. 1890. "Meleagris gallopavo osceola." The Auk, vol. VII: 376-377. New York NY: L.S. Foster.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/16266895

Sennett, George Burritt. 1879. "Meleagridae. 116. Meleagris gallopavo L. -- Mexican Turkey." Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories 1879-'80 vol. V, no. 3: 427-428. Washington DC: Government Printing Office.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/31564187

Viellot, Louis Jean Pierre. 1817. Meleagris gallopavo silvestris. Nouvelle Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, Appliquée aux Arts, tome IX:. Paris, France: Chez Deterville.
Available via Google Books @ https://books.google.com/books?id=4clCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA447&lpg