This Turkey Tuesday is about how wild turkeys deal with extreme heat. Wild turkeys don’t have the luxury of cooling off in the AC, but they do have adaptations and behaviors to handle the brutal heat of summer. One, they’ll pant like the tom in the 1st image, which expels hot air quickly while replacing it with cooler air – this exchange lowers the bird’s core body temperature. Two, the lack of feathering on the head allows heat to dissipate, which is why turkeys will often bury their head in their feathers when dealing with extreme cold temperatures – the head is where the bird loses heat. Three, how their heads function to dissipate heat is interesting – besides the lack of feathering, the caruncles and fleshy bumps on the head and neck increase surface area so the blood flow to these areas facilitates heat loss. Four, research has shown that during hot weather, turkeys will select areas in their home ranges where temperatures are cooler and then greatly reduce their movements. The 2nd image shows a tom intensively using a low-elevation hardwood bottom and some areas of hardwoods that bisected a pine forest during a stretch of 90+ degree days, equating to only 125 acres of area used across almost 2 weeks. Those hardwoods provided shade and coupled with air movement, areas for birds to “cool off”. The take home is wild turkeys are adaptable to tough climates and have evolved ways of dealing with extreme heat that seems to be so common across much of their range this time of year.
Pic of tom by Joe Foster
