[TN-Bird] Turkey Behavior
- From: John Mellon <jmellon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, bristol-birds <bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:35:06 -0400
Hi all,
A friend of mine observed the behavior described below. Any ideas?
At about 10:00 o'clock in the morning a gang of 12 birds wandered
onto our front pasture. We watched as the gang formed into 2 rather
loose groups and commenced chasing each other around in a sort of
figure eight pattern for a couple of minutes. We had seen this
behavior before, but not what followed.
We watched a lone turkey fly in and land about 100 yards away from the
group. Here was the unusual part. As soon as the lone turkey landed,
the gang of 12 quickly formed an almost perfect circle about 10 feet
around. They all dropped to to the ground as if nesting. They were about
2 feet apart and all of the birds faced outside of the circle. Then the
lone bird began slowly walking down the hill toward the group. The bird
was very cautious and stopped often, watching the gang carefully. When
the lone bird finally got about fifty feet from the group, it too
dropped down as if nesting. There was no movement by any of the birds
for about five minutes. Then the bird that was closest to the lone
visitor broke rank from the circle and slowly walked over to the lone
bird some 50 feet away. We thought they were going to fight, but they
did not. When the the bird who broke rank reached the lone bird, the
loner stood up, they circled around each other once or twice, and then
they walked back to the gang still formed up in the circle. When the 2
birds reached the group, they all stood up and continued with their
normal feeding habits. They took their time, crossed our front pasture,
drank water from our pond and marched up into the woods.
This was quite a morning show for us. We have tried to find literature
on the Internet regarding wild turkey behavioral patterns, but have not
found any reference to what we observed. We did read that when the
turkeys are under threat, they have been known to form into a semicircle
and march toward the threat with wings splayed. Anyway, we are
fascinated and very curious. We wonder if anyone out there might know
what the ritual meant.
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