This Turkey Tuesday is about reflection. The term mirror image is one quite common in our world, often referring to a reflected duplicate of an object. So how does this term relate to wild turkeys? Well, in geometry, mirror image refers to a transformation where an image or shape is flipped over a line of reflection – the result is the image is reversed in direction. Soon, wild turkeys will quite literally flip a switch, and in many ways start heading in opposite directions. For the past few months wild turkeys have been focused squarely on finding reliable food sources and exploiting those food sources while burning as little energy as possible. The result is they’ve gained weight and body fat and will soon weigh more than at any time of the year. They’ve also spent the fall and winter in larger flocks of the same sex, and they’ve sorted out dominance hierarchies within those flocks. These flocks are stable and have been for many weeks. But the transformation is right around the corner in many parts of the bird’s range. Toms begin to strut for hens that are not yet receptive to breeding, but that’s by design as testosterone levels build in toms months before onset of breeding. Body weights will slowly decline for both sexes, as toms focus more on breeding than foraging and hens deal with the rigors of egg production. Both sexes will begin to shift their home ranges, use more space, and the large winter flocks will start to split – slowly at first, smaller groups will leave the larger flocks for a few days and return. This back and forth in flock composition will last for weeks leading up to the waning days of winter when the flocks dissolve for good. And once those flocks dissolve, turkeys will abandon their winter ranges and move, sometimes quite a distance, to occupy their spring range – this is why for some landowners, turkeys literally disappear when spring comes. The take home is the wild turkey world will soon come to a point of transformation that involves many aspects of their behavior, sociality, and physiology.
Photo by Monte Loomis.
