I don’t usually think about turkeys unless it’s November, but a recent walk in Owen Conservation Park brought me face to face with a group of them. Now, I’ve seen turkeys in this park before, but never during the spring when, you know, a young tom’s fancy turns to thoughts of love. I had barely left the parking lot when there they were, strutting their stuffing, I mean their stuff, across the freshly burned prairie.
A group of male turkeys, tail feathers in full display, were slowly walking towards a common goal. At first I couldn’t spot the object of their interest but then, there she was, a female turkey walking around, pecking at food on the ground and totally ignoring the males. The toms didn’t get the hint, however, so they kept slowly following the seemingly oblivious hen. When they got too close, she hustled through their line and made her escape. Then she returned to casual dining while they wandered about looking forlorn.
The female turkey was quite plain but the male turkeys were a strange combination of incredible ugliness and amazing colorfulness, kind of like overweight clowns. As they walked along they would occasionally stretch out their necks and squawk out something that sounded suspiciously like “gobble, gobble, gobble.” At one point they ran along noisily gobbling and flapping their wings. Very interesting.
Note: Wild turkeys were reintroduced into Wisconsin in 1976 and, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the program has been very successful.