Nest Site Fidelity and Nesting Success of Female Wild Turkeys

We used GPS data to see if hens nested in the same areas each year, and whether hens that were successful in hatching a nest one year were more likely to do so again the following year.  We found that hens didn’t nest in the same areas in consecutive years, but they did use the same general areas prior to nesting.  We also found that if a hen hatched a nest in one year, she had a 63% chance of hatching one the next year, but if she failed the first year, she only had a 8% chance of being successful the next year.  The take home is, it appears that a lot of poults in our populations are produced by a relatively small segment of the hen population.