Living with Wild Turkeys in the garden

Attracting cardinals, blue jays, nuthatches and other garden birds to your yard is one thing, but wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) – that’s on a whole other level.

They are large. Massive, in fact, and their oversized feet capped with claws can make short work of a properly manicured garden bed. If you’ve got a layer of black landscape fabric under the mulch, plan to have most of the that ripped up and left in a dishevelled mess under the feeders.

An Eastern wild turkey routs through leaves in the backyard looking for insects.

But that’s a mild inconvenience. I’m more than happy to endure some inconvenience to see these magnificent birds strutting their stuff through the garden and bedding down in our fern garden.

I don’t want them sticking around forever, but for a few days in spring or fall, it’s just fine with me.

If you have never seen wild turkeys, you may not be looking in the right places. These massive birds are often seen walking in fields or on the edges of deciduous and mixed woodlands. They are well adapted to this environment, foraging for food during the day and roosting in trees during the night.

For more on wild turkeys, you may want to check out “The Wild Turkey, Biology and Management.”

A male wild turkey under our bird feeder filling up on white millet bird seed. 

What do wild turkeys eat?

Turkeys are omnivores, meaning they will eat seeds, nuts, berries, snails and a host of insects. Acorns are by far their favourite food. Oak trees, once again, come to the forefront of must-have trees to have in your yard.

For more on why oaks are so important in our landscapes go here.

Eastern wild turkeys will also readily eat small mammals such as mice and voles helping them to become a gardener’s friend.

They typically forage in the morning and evening, but can also, at times, be seen during the day. They especially like to go into corn and wheat fields after the harvest and feast on the remaining grains.

Identifying male and female wild turkeys

The distinctive gobble, beards and beautiful tail feathers of the male makes them easy to identify.

In North America primarily in the United States there are five native subspecies – the Rio Grande, the Merriam’s, the Osceola, the Eastern, and the Gould’s. But we are here to talk about the native eastern wild turkey.

Turkeys are wide spread across the United States up into Canada as far north as Quebec and down south into Mexico.

An immature wild turkey strolls through the garden. The trailing beard gives away the sex of the bird, although a small percentage of females also grow beards.

Why did wild turkeys become almost extinct?

Over hunting the clearing of its woodland habitat and the loss of its staple food to chestnut blight made this, the largest of North American game birds, one of the rarest. But the Wild Turkey has made and impressive comeback and is now found in every state except Alaska.

According to the Ontario government website: The eastern wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) was reintroduced into the province in 1984 and is now a thriving population playing an important part of the biodiversity of Southern Ontario.

Today, it is estimated that more than 100,000 turkeys call Ontario home. All of these wild turkeys are descendants of the original 274 turkeys that were released around 1984.

“Unregulated hunting and clearing of native forests for agriculture caused the extirpation (regional extinction) of wild turkeys from Ontario in 1909,” the Ontario government website states. “Efforts to restore wild turkeys began in 1984 and were successful. Ontario experienced a rapid expansion of the number and range of the birds in the province. Because of forestry, agriculture and milder climatic conditions, the occupied range of wild turkeys in Ontario is now larger than the historical range.”

Reintroduction programs throughout the United States introduced wild turkeys in the early 1990s have also proved very successful and helped wild turkeys become a “species of least concern.”

Why have wild turkeys come to my yard?

And, it is this group of reintroduced wild turkeys that have decided to spend several days in our yard primarily gorging on our bird feed, but also systematically routing through our fallen leaves looking for insects. The fact that our fallen leaves are left on the ground – unlike most of our neighbours – is one of the reasons the wild turkeys have chosen our yard to feel at home.

For more on why it’s important to leave fallen leaves in the garden go here.

Raking up leaves and disposing of them not only kills so many insects and other wildlife that depend on them to overwinter, it discourages birds and other animals from coming to our yards in search of food.

One of the three wild turkeys spending a few days in our yard cleaning up the spilled bird feed and routing through leaves looking for insects.

Wild Turkeys in the garden

There is no mistaking a wild turkey in the yard. If a crow or even a raptor is the largest bird you’ve had in your yard, you better be prepared for what appears to be a prehistoric invasion of the avian kind.

This year I’ve counted as many as nine roaming through the yard scratching for insects and seeds buried just below the duff of the woodland floor. That was in the early summer when the babies were old enough to more or less have their adult feathers but still quite small to be mistaken for a very large group of crows.

There is no mistaking the trio of male wild turkeys we’ve been entertaining this week in the yard. These are three wild turkeys looking for food for the long winter ahead.

And what better place to find it than beneath our bird feeding station.

When I say large, I mean about three feet tall.

These wild turkeys are actually 1 of 5 sub-species and is the most common one found in Canada and the Eastern half of the United States. They also have the widest range of each of the five sub-species.

The eastern wild turkeys actually live in diverse habitats but can usually be found in a near hardwood forest and in agricultural fields.

They are the largest of the five sub-species. Adult males, also known as a gobbler, average just over three feet in height (91 centimeters) and can weigh up to 25 pounds (11.34 kg). Juvenile males, also known as jakes, will typically be 2.5 feet to 3-feet in height and average 16 pounds (7.25 kg). While female turkeys known as hens, are slightly smaller than jakes and weigh around 9 pounds (4.082 kg).

To keep warm during our cold winters, Adult wild turkeys typically grow 5-6,000 dark yet extremely colourful feathers. The feathers are actually beautiful and appear to change colour when light hits them at different angles.

Wild turkeys also have some of the best eyesight of any animal or bird. Their eyes are positioned on each side of their heads giving them an almost 360 degree field of vision. They also have excellent colour and depth perception, and don’t have to shift their focus to see other objects at different distances, meaning everything in their view is always in focus.

Wild turkeys generally roost or sleep high up in trees where they are safer from marauding coyotes and other predators. But when it comes to laying their eggs, hens prefer the ground. Eastern wild turkeys lay their eggs from late March to May, typically laying and average of eight to twelve eggs.

This process can take one to two weeks to complete as hen turkeys tend to only lay one egg a day.

The hens do not collect sticks or other material to build a nest, instead choosing to lay their eggs directly on the ground, often in a grassy areas protected by overgrown bushes. The incubation period lasts 26 to 28 days.

The baby wild turkeys are called poults and are able to fly and run shortly after hatching. Both Wild Turkey parents care of the poults teaching them how to find food and avoid predators. In addition the male will help to incubate the eggs.

The poults usually stay with their parents for several months learning how to find food and escape predators.

Wild turkeys live in groups called flocks. These flocks can have just a few birds up to several hundred birds.

The courting period of wild turkeys is certainly the most entertaining time of the year. This phase happens just before and during the nesting period when the gobblers strut their stuff much like a peacock showing their 18 tail feathers in an impressive show meant to catch the attention of a nearby hen. Although strutting is used to attract hens, it is also used to show dominance over other male turkeys. As a result, strutting can often be seen outside the typical courting season.

During the mating season, the top of the gobblers’ heads turn a pure white during this strut further showing off the spectacular colours in their face and neck ranging from bright blue, reds and whites caused by blood vessels in their heads and necks. The male turkeys can control these colours which helps to communicate to other turkeys what kind of mood they are in.

The more colourful the tail, the more attractive it is to female turkeys.

In addition, the fleshy, wormlike piece of skin on their foreheads just in front of their eyes just above the beak is referred to as the snoot. It also has the ability to change colours along with its shape ranging from short and stubby to long and colourful.

Male turkeys produce a loud and rather unique vocalization called gobbling. A gobble can be heard up to a mile away and is used for a variety of situations. Most of the time, however, turkeys are quite elusive birds that spend most of their time clucking and purring to one another. These much lower calls can be harder to hear unless you are very close to the bird. The variety of clucks can mean many things, from friendly and courting purrs, aggressive fighting purrs and even warning clucks to alert other turkeys that danger is near.

Turkeys are capable fliers and can run up to 25 miles per hour but usually only do this when they are trying to escape a predator.

Wild turkeys are an important part of our ecosystem. In the garden and in the wild, wild turkeys help control populations of insects and rodents,

It is the state bird of six states including Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri and Pennsylvania.

Climate change has played a role in Eastern wild turkeys’ success in Canada including Southern Ontario and into colder regions into Quebec. They are also found as far west as the Dakotas in the United States.

Differences between wild and domesticated turkeys

Domestic turkeys tend to gobble all year long rather than just in spring. It’s head and neck are covered with more parenthelated skin and its snoot, which hangs over its bill, is much longer. It is said to have a smaller brain and are unable to survive outside of captivity.

Domestic gobblers can also weigh up to 50 pounds.

Selective breeding has also created the domesticated white turkey.

The wild turkey is far more alert, its neck and legs are longer and its body is more streamlined. Adult males have a beard which grows four to five inches a year and can get up to a foot long on three-year-old gobblers. But because they only grow so long, they are not an accurate measure of age. Although the beards look like long hair, they are actually a tuft of modified feathers.

About one in twenty hens also have beards.

The gobblers and hens spend most of the year apart, using a variety of vocalizations to locate one another for mating season.

Every flock has a dominant gobbler. The spurs on his lower legs indicate his age more accurately than his beard, The spurs grow about half and inch per year and go from round the first year to blunt after two years to sharp three years to very hip at older than three years.

Nearly all turkeys live within a five mile radius but a foraging flock may wander widely.