A land manager's guide to conserving habitat for forest birds in ...

Wild Turkey Meleagris gallopavo
each other and the dominant male gains access to the females.
Females nest in a shallow depression on the forest floor, usually
at the base of a tree or under a brush pile, bush, or thick
vegetation. Turkeys are single-brooded, laying 10 to17 whitish
eggs, speckled with brown.
Diet
The Wild Turkey is omnivorous. In fall and winter, they feed on
acorns, beech nuts, bulbs, seeds, and fruits of shrubs and trees.
In spring and summer, they switch to predominantly grass and
sedge seeds, and consume small amounts of insects (beetles and
snails) and small vertebrates (salamanders and snakes).
Male Wild Turkey — Photo: Garth McElroy
Identification (110–115 centimetres)
The Wild Turkey is a large, rather awkward ground-dwelling bird
capable of making powerful short-distance flights. It is a resilient,
prolific and strikingly handsome bird with long legs, long neck
and a large fan-shaped tail. Turkeys are black to blackish-bronze
with white wing bars, black and brown tail feathers, and a
featherless bluish-gray to reddish head and neck (depending on
the bird’s emotional state). “Toms” or males are more iridescent
than females and sport a hair-like beard which protrudes from
the breast bone. Females, called hens, are smaller and duller with
bare grey heads and feathered necks. Turkeys are gregarious
through most of the year, bar the lone incubating female. They
are promiscuous, and one tom will often mate with many hens.
Conservation Status
Prior to European settlement, the Wild Turkey was abundant and
widespread throughout eastern North America in hardwood and
mixed forests with scattered openings. Unregulated hunting and
habitat loss, however, led to extirpation from Ontario by 1909. A
restoration program, which began in 1984, has successfully
restored turkey populations in the province. In North America,
populations have increased by 12.9 percent annually since 1968,
and have even expanded west beyond their historical range.
Breeding Biology
This permanent resident breeds from southern Ontario, Alberta,
Saskatchewan, and Manitoba southward throughout the US states
and down to central Mexico. In early spring, turkeys disband
from their winter flocks to form smaller breeding groups with
one or more males and several females. These males challenge
Management Guidelines
Because Wild Turkeys use a variety of habitats throughout the year
for food, shelter, and cover they need a landscape that includes a
mix of forest and open areas. Management for turkeys can include
maintaining patches of dense conifer for roosting and to allow for
patches of reduced snow depths that ease winter movements,
retaining both soft and hard mast producing plants for food,
thinning to promote growth of foraging habitat, maintaining mixed
stands of variable age, applying prescribed burns or group
selection to stimulate fruit-bearing shrub and understorey growth,
and ensuring that harvests protect spring seepages that provide
turkeys with a source of water
during the winter.
How to Find
Although the Wild Turkey is
a large ground-dwelling bird,
it can be rather elusive. Look
for small groups feeding in
agricultural fields on the
edge of woodlots in the early
morning or listen for its
gobble in the spring.
Did you know?
Photo: OMNR
• Turkeys can swim short distances.
• Wild Turkey males mate with several females (polygyny). Males
attract females by gobbling and strutting with their tail fanned out,
their wings lowered and dragging on the ground, their back feathers
erect, their head thrown back, and their crop inflated.
• Although hens build their own nests and incubate their own young,
they are also known to frequently “dump” some of their eggs into
another turkey’s nest.
• The Wild Turkey was almost the national bird of the United States,
losing out to the Bald Eagle by one vote.
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Bird Species Accounts