The Prolifically Hunted Eastern Wild Turkey

Posted on March 22nd, 2009 in Turkey History by admin

Turkey Hunting Tips – Many turkey hunters hunt eastern wild turkey, the turkey that inhabits the United States in the greatest of numbers. It is widely distributed across the United States and is one of several subspecies that cover the American continent. Roughly speaking, it inhabits the eastern half of the United States. The Puritans first described the turkey in 1817 and back then, named it the forest turkey.

Some of the birds of this subspecies of wild turkeys can grow very large. The male adult turkey, also called tom or gobbler, can grow up to 4 feet tall and weigh more than 20 pounds. It has a covert tail and the tips of the tail of the long feathers are tipped with chestnut brown color and a dark buff or chocolate brown. The breast feathers of the Eastern turkey are black, while other feathers on the rest of the body have an iridescent sheen. The iridescent sheen ranges in color from rich metallic copper to bronze.

The upper set of wing feathers has white and black bars all the way from the tip to the shaft. The lower set of feathers is predominantly white and is white edged and form a white triangular area when the wings are folded up. Male turkeys also have a fleshy flap close to their beaks called caruncles, which expands due to blood rushing into the flaps when the turkey is excited. Males also often display a beard and a spur as a difference to female turkeys.

Female birds can get almost as tall as the male turkey, but in general they are much lighter than the male turkey only around 7 to 12 pounds in weight. The female turkey is called hen. Even though coloration is similar, the colors are less bright in their iridescent sheen and many female turkeys are of browner color. Female breast feathers are rather brown instead of black tipped and the heads of female Eastern turkeys are covered in a certain amount of feathers, while males ones are not. Female turkeys also do not possess the caruncles around the beak.

A Brief Bio on the Rio Grande Wild Turkey

Posted on March 21st, 2009 in Turkey History by admin

Turkey Hunting Tips – The Rio Grande wild turkey once came very close to extinction, but thanks to several Federal programs that preserved the turkey, it is now thriving and is allowed to be hunted again. The Rio Grande turkey has certain preferences that make it an ideal bird for hunting if you live in one its habitats.

As the name might suggest, the Rio Grande wild turkey does call west Texas near the Rio Grande home, but its territory is much larger than that. George B. Sennett first identified the bird in 1879. Sennett described the turkey as being an “intermediary” between the Eastern wild turkey and wild turkey species more commonly found in western parts of the US. This intermediary tag stuck, helping to earn the turkey its scientific name, Meleagris Gallapavo Intermedia.

In Bennett’s days, the Rio Grande wild turkey roamed in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and even down into parts of northern Mexico. When Bennett first came across the turkey, it is estimated that its popular ran into the millions, but within a few decades, the bird on the verge of extinction. In the early 1930s, several Federal programs were put into place to help protect the Rio Grande turkey. The main procedure followed involved capturing the turkeys and moving them to protected areas where they could reproduce and thrive. Although the turkeys are not thought to have reached their previous numbers, they are believed to have rebounded considerably and are no longer protected. Texas is home to the largest population of Rio Grande turkeys. Thanks to the relocation programs followed during the protection period for the birds, you can find Rio Grande turkeys further a field than their natural habit, including in Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, California and Utah.

Wild Turkey Facts – Get Familiar with this Thanksgiving Fowl

Posted on March 19th, 2009 in Turkey History by admin

Wild Turkey Hunting – Turkey, part of one of the biggest family dinner traditions in the United States, is a bird native to North America. But not everybody knows much more than how to carve and eat the turkey, let alone how or where to hunt it. To help those that aren’t aware about the facts, here is a gathering of information that might help anyone get up to speed on wild turkey facts.

Fully-grown wild turkeys have a small head, which is of red color and bears no feathers whatsoever. Long reddish-orange to grayish-blue legs, a dark brown to black colored, feathered body are common to most turkeys. Male birds additionally have a red throat. Most turkeys have caruncles on their heads and fleshy flaps close to the bill that expands when the turkey is excited. This happens due to blood flowing into the flap and expanding.

A turkey’s foot has four toes and in male birds, there is usually a spur found on the lower leg of the bird. Fully-grown wild turkeys are often called a tom or longbeard. Generally, turkeys have a dark colored, long and fan shaped tail. The color of the overall feather dress is of dark color. As with so many other birds in the wild, turkeys display big differences in their overall shape and color when it comes to sex. The male turkey is generally much bigger than the female turkey and his feathers also display great iridescence in such beautiful colors as copper, red, bronze, purple and green. Female feathers are overall more dull and in the range from brown to gray. Most male turkeys have white coloration on their wings, lower back or tail tips.

A Look at Florida’s Osceola Wild Turkey

Posted on May 7th, 2008 in Turkey History by admin

The Florida Osceola Wild Turkey is one of the most popular of the wild turkeys. The Florida Osceola Wild Turkey is also known by its scientific name, which is Meleagris gallopavo osceola. The Florida Osceola Wild Turkey can only be found in the peninsula of Florida. The Florida Osceola Wild Turkey is similar to the eastern wild turkey in some respects, but with many important physical traits that distinguishes this important subspecies

The Namesake of the Florida Osceola Wild Turkey

The Florida Osceola Wild Turkey was named after the famous Seminole Chief, Osceola. W.E.D. Scott first described the Florida Osceola Wild Turkey in the year1890. Chief Osceola is famous for leading his tribe against invading Americans in a twenty-year war that began in 1835.

Physical Characteristics of the Florida Osceola Wild Turkey

Six Basic Types of Turkey Calls

Posted on April 10th, 2008 in Turkey History by admin

A large part of success in turkey hunting is determined by your ability to call your prey. Since sneaking up on turkeys is out of the question and stalking them as you would another kind of animal is too difficult, you need to call the turkeys in to you. Of course, not all turkey calls are created equal. There are certain kinds of calls that are right for certain kinds of situations and figuring out which call you need to make when will make all the difference in the world when it comes to getting your turkey. The six basic turkey calls listen here will work for a number of different scenarios.

One of the most basic turkey calls is one that is intended to sound like a female turkey, or a hen, yelping. To yelp like a hen, you need to make a series of high pitched – almost screech like – noises in short, frequent bursts. The hen uses this yelp in a number of different ways to mean a number of different things, but all you need to worry about is the fact that this yelp alerts the male turkeys that a hen is in the area, drawing them in – which of course means they are coming in closer to you.

A Brief History on Turkey’s Role in Thanksgiving

Posted on March 25th, 2008 in Turkey History by admin

How did the turkey become the symbol of Thanksgiving? The turkey has long been a symbol of Thanksgiving, but how did it get to be this way? The wild turkey, scientific name Meleagris gallop ova, is a native bird to North America. The wild turkey was a staple of the North American Indian diet for many centuries. The Spaniards were the first to bring back North American turkeys (procured from Mexico) back to Europe in 1519. The tamed North American turkeys had made it back to England by 1524. How did turkeys get their curious name? The reason they are named turkeys is that the Spaniards imported them by passing through a route that took them through the country of Turkey. In those early days, the wild turkeys were confused with the guinea fowl, and both were often called turkeys. Even after the wild bird was assigned its scientific name, the common name of turkey persisted, and persists to this very day. Curiously, a common Native American name for turkeys was peru. This made no reference to the South American country of the same name. Also interesting is the fact that the Pilgrims brought with them several domesticated turkeys on their long voyage to America in 1620.

Early History of the American Turkey