Two tom and two hen turkeys. Photo by Randy Streufert
They’re not those big white, puffed-out gobblers in kids’ storybooks, but wild turkeys are exciting a few lucky Northern Virginians who’ve spotted these birds ambling about and pecking around lately.
Turkey in the Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve.
Mount Vernonite Laurie Shirey recently glimpses two turkeys poking around Grist Mill Park’s soccer field. At Huntley Meadows Park, visitors on the Cedar Trail have seen male turkeys out in the woods. Larry Meade, president of the Northern Virginia Bird Club, spotted some at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge and another observer nearly ran off Belle Haven Road watching a turkey pecking the ground between the road and the Belle Haven Golf Course.
Northern Virginians see wild turkeys in parks, cemeteries and occasionally neighborhoods, but the birds’ preferred habitats are woodlands and open clearings. When they forage, they scratch in the leaf litter and feed on acorns, seeds, berries, grass blades and sometimes frogs and snakes.
The “Grandest of Game Birds”
The National Wild Turkey Federation has this description of Meleagris gallopavo, the North American wild turkey’s scientific name: “Considered among the grandest of game birds, the American wild turkey has many characteristics that distinguish it from other fowl. The unmistakable snood, caruncles, head color and beard truly set it apart.” Turkeys also have wattles, hocks, shanks and spurs, anatomical terms that send many people to the dictionary. See graphic
Virginia’s wild turkeys weigh around 17-19 pounds. They typically mate in the spring and the females, called “hens,” lay eggs in mid-April. Their young hatch in early June. Turkeys gobble to announce their presence, according to Josh Honeycutt in Outdoor Life. They also cluck, cackle, yelp and purr, he notes.
In the early 20th century, turkeys vanished from two-thirds of Virginia and hit a population low between 1880 and 1910. Managers took several steps to increase the population.
Virginia’s turkey population is around 180,000 today, reports the state’s Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR), with the highest densities in the Tidewater, South Mountain and South Piedmont regions of the state. There are around seven million turkeys in North America, according to the National Wildlife Federation.
Fairfax County has a “very low density” of turkeys, 0.26 per square mile, DWR surveys show. High-density counties, like some in southeastern Virginia, have 0.92 turkeys per square mile.
Last year, Dino Grandoni wrote for the Washington Post, “Once-common [bird] species, like the turkey, are becoming less common, a distressing signal about the way humans are warming the planet and altering the environment.”
Asked about turkey population trends, “The turkey story is a bit complicated,” emailed Mike Dye, a DWR upland gamebird biologist. “Reproduction indices have been down across the eastern portion of the range for quite some time and survival data indicates that our turkeys may have a tough go of it as an adult.”
Turkeys use closed canopy forests and open fields, but he explains that the scrub, shrub and early successional habitats that turkeys need to nest and raise their young are declining. “If we don't have an abundance of that habitat, turkeys will not be able to flourish,” he wrote.
He said that DWR officials have some “concerns with decreased productivity in portions of the state.” He has seen swings in populations over fairly short periods of time, citing localized habitat changes and local weather patterns during nesting and brood rearing season.
He summarizes that DWR data show stable populations. “But if we look through the larger landscape context, we see turkeys doing well in some areas while struggling a bit in other areas. Overall, the population changes often offset and we see stable population metrics, but may be seeing some localized population concerns.”
Franklin’s Favorite
When eyeing that plastic-wrapped, supermarket butterball, it’s hard to realize that many adult turkeys in the wild are actually quite beautiful. Their iridescent dark copper, bronze, red and green feathers shine in the sun. A male’s droppings are j-shaped; a female’s, spiral-shaped. And NWF offers, “They reach up to 55 mph flying and 25 mph running.”
Perhaps it was intriguing facts like those that led American Revolutionary leader Benjamin Franklin, in comparing the turkey to the bald eagle, to dub the turkey, “a much more respectable Bird,” ever boldly at-the-ready to attack a “Grenadier of the British Guards.”