What is all the gobbling about?

BONNERS FERRY — Last week I woke up to a familiar wildlife sound just 50 feet from our house at the edge of the pine trees. I hurried to look out the window to see what the ruckus was about and saw an amazing sight. Two tom turkeys were gobbling their heads off and strutting around in a tight circle trying to attract the attention of two nearby turkey hens.

The toms were large, plump brown and bronze birds with striking blue and red bare heads. They were fanning their tail and had a long, straight black bear in the center of their chest with spurs on their legs. The females were thinner and less striking than the males and lacking the breast beard.

Some days, turkeys gobble from dawn to dark. Other days, they don’t gobble at all. Why? The easy explanation is that they’re unpredictable. While that may be true, turkey gobbling does follow a pattern throughout the mating season, with two peaks and a lull in between. The onset of spring prompts gobblers to sound off and display. In the spring after toms gather harems, gobbling decreases, marking the height of mating season. Eventually fertilized hens leave the flock to sit on nests; then gobbling picks up again as toms search for unbred females. Gobbling rises to a second peak, then tapers off at the end of May.

At this time of year males are bedecked with blue wattles (flap of skin on the throat) and snoods (fleshy piece of skin that hangs over the beak), and bright red major caruncles (bulbous, flesh growths at the bottom of the turkey’s throat). Displaying these adornments while slowly gliding around a female, the male fans his tail, lowers his wings with the primaries dragging on the ground, elevates the feathers on his back and throws his head backward. The female often ignores the entire process and moves. This process is repeated until the hen finally chooses a likely suitor.

The Wild Turkey is the largest game bird in Idaho, and the bird from which the domestic turkey was bred. The Wild Turkey almost became our national bird, losing to the Bald Eagle. They are strong fliers and can fly up to 60 miles per hour and run up to 25 miles per hour. They are able to fly straight up and then away to get into a tree or flee from a predator or hunter.

Their eyesight is three times better than a human and they can hear competing males up to a mile away. Males can hold “harems” of up to 20 females. The turkey young are called poults and hens may have as many as 10-12 buff white eggs with dull brown markings. The incubation for young turkeys is 27-28 days and is in the fledging stage for 6-10 days. The hen tends the young and leads them to food. Their primary source of food is insects, seeds and fruit.

Although turkeys spend most of their time on the ground during the day, they sleep in trees at night. Turkeys cannot see well in the dark consequently sleeping in trees provides protection from predators that hunt and see well at night. They fly up in a tall tree to roost at dusk, and fly down at dawn to begin their daily rituals.

The maximum recorded lifespan for a turkey in captivity is 12 years and four months. For turkeys living in the wild, the maximum is less than 10 years, but the average life expectancy of a male turkey is just over 2 years and just over 3 years for females.

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For more information go to www.naturally northidaho.com