A large, familiar-shaped game bird with a dark, iridescent body and a featherless, bluish head with red wattles. The female is smaller and less iridescent than the male, and usually lacks spurs and the tuft of hair-like feathers on the breast. In courtship, the male struts and gobbles with his tail fanned and the female responds with a yelping call. The Wild Turkey was almost hunted to extinction in the late 1800’s, but has made a marked comeback due to protection programs.
Forest, Grassland, Wetland
Wild turkeys are one of the most widely distributed game bird species in North America. They are found throughout most of the eastern United States, and in pockets throughout the western United States. Best ranges for turkeys in the Coastal Plain and Piedmont sections have an interspersion of clearings, farms, and plantations with preferred habitat along principal rivers and in cypress and tupelo swamps.
Common
Diurnal
Turkeys are omnivorous. They eat vegetable matter such as acorns, nuts, seeds, buds, leaves and fern fronds as well as ground-dwelling insects and salamanders.
Wild turkeys are diurnal and non-migratory. By day, they can be seen grazing in fields and woodlands. At night, they roost in trees. Despite their weight, wild turkeys, unlike their domesticated counterparts, are agile, fast fliers. Turkeys are social. During the winter, they form bands in which dominance hierarchies may develop.
Wild turkeys provide food for their predators and impact populations of the plants whose seeds and nuts they eat.
Least Concern
