Behind my apartment there is a wooded area in which I frequently observe wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo). Most of the time, their activity is unremarkable. I just see them hurrying back on forth on their little turkey errands, presumably foraging for bugs and acorns. In the fall, I watched them attack a small crab apple tree. This was kind of funny as it involved the turkeys flying up into the diminutive tree, grasping one of its branches for as long as they could while grabbing a few apples, and then falling back down when the branch refused to support them. My turkeys are a quiet bunch for the most part, only occasionally making sort of honking sounds. This had caused me some anxiety as I distinctly recall a lesson from my youth in which I learned that turkeys go “gobble gobble.”
This morning, I was reading when I heard a sound like a dozen grocery carts being pushed across a parking lot really fast. I went to the window and witnessed my first displaying male turkey. He was enormous, puffed up, and with his tail spread just like in all those Thanksgiving decorations I remember from grade school classrooms. (Remember when you made a hand print with paint and then decorated it like a turkey? Fun times!) Apparently he was the source of the shopping cart noise, which I suppose could be described as a “gobble.” He was surrounded by maybe eight to ten other turkeys of indeterminate sex. The other turkeys seemed pretty agitated. I figure either they were females who were hoping to get lucky or they were males who were irate because this tom was jumping the gun and doing his love dance in February. (“Dude, you can’t DO that!”)
A little web research revealed a bit about the wild turkey’s habits and sexual politics. It seems that most of the year, turkeys hang out in single sex groups and these groups only come together in the mating season. I’ve been unsuccessful in finding any very detailed data on when mating season normally starts in the northeast, but one website lists it as “March or early April.” The behavior of the tom that I saw this morning seems strange, especially given that it’s in the low 20s outside and there’s snow on the ground. It just doesn’t feel like a day made for turkey love.
The bad news is that the flock of turkeys went over a small ridge to continue their negotiations in private, so I don’t know if the tom’s bid for a winter mating was successful. I am very excited about spring coming and hopefully I will have more turkey tales to tell as the year progresses.