It's turkey mating season: How toms dress for success with female wild turkeys

Early on in my chicken-rearing days we also raised some turkeys. Just a few, and as luck would have it all three were males. I have a very poignant memory of those male turkeys forlornly strutting around the chicken yard trying to get the hens to pay attention to them. It's a memory I revisit every year when I pass wild turkeys in the neighbors’ field. A large flock of them congregate there, the males with their tails spread and heads turning alarming colors of bright blue and white, the difference being that these males actually have a chance to win over some females.

Turkey mating season is upon us. According to the Maine Department of Fish and Wildlife, “Wild Turkeys in Maine breed during April and May. Dominant toms do most of the breeding. Through elaborate strutting and gobbling, they try to attract and mate with as many hens as they can, which may be as many as 12 or more.” That short summary, however, hides a wealth of drama within the turkey community.

At the start of the breeding season, it is mostly males doing the strutting. They strut at each other (and sometimes fight) to establish dominance. The dominant tom gets the pick of the females. These dominance displays involve not just strutting, but also gobbling, standing upright with tail feathers fanned, wings dragging on the ground, making non-vocal hums and chump sounds (Cornell Lab of Ornithology). When excited, their wattles (the fleshy protuberances that hang from their neck and throat) as well as their snoods (another fleshy protuberance located above the beak) swell as they become engorged with blood and turn bright red. The red coupled with their striking blue faces signals to both their rivals and potential mates their health and vigor. Size matters. Studies have shown that females prefer longer snoods. Since learning this, whenever I can observe flocks of male turkeys during breeding season, I try to figure out who is going to be the dominant tom, who has the most colorful face, the longest snood, the most upright military posture.

Turkey skin can turn color, from red to blue to white, because of bundles of collagen interspersed with dense arrays of blood vessels located just under the skin. The skin changes color when the blood vessels swell or contract, altering the spacing between the collagen fibers, in turn changing the way the skin scatters light waves, changing the color we see. This is similar to why our veins appear blue. It’s all about which light waves are getting reflected back to the eye.

After mating, the big male-female flocks disperse. Males form all-male flocks while the females go off to lay the eggs and rear the young. Once all the eggs are hatched, family groups will often combine forming large flocks of young turkeys along with two or more adult females. For now though, when you see a flock of turkeys in a field, it is most likely a mixed flock of mature birds. While similar in appearance the males are bigger and blockier and more colorful than the females with a metallic sheen to their feathers, whereas females are more slender with dull brown feathers. Males also have a prominent beard - a tuft of modified feathers that can grow as long as 12 inches! Females sometimes have these, too, but they tend to be short and sparse.

One fascinating difference between the genders is the shape of their scat. The males is j-shaped while the female’s is spiraled. Check that out next time you are in a field! This is due to differences in the internal anatomy of the genders. Males have a rudimentary internal sex organ that is believed to influence the shape of the scat.

After learning more about turkey mating behavior, I don’t feel as bad as I used to for my female-less male turkeys. It’s good to know that displaying for other males is part of their normal repertoire of behaviors. I also can’t wait to get out into a turkey field and look for scat.

Susan Pike, a researcher and an environmental sciences and biology teacher at Dover High School, welcomes your ideas for future column topics. She is looking for readers to send her the signs of spring they're noticing so she can document them on her website pikes-hikes.com. Send your photos and observations to spike3116@gmail.com. Read more of her Nature News columns online at Seacoastonline.com and pikes-hikes.com, and follow her on Instagram @pikeshikes.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Turkey mating season is in full swing on the Seacoast NH