(Please see picture gallery below – if you have any pix please send to sheilaelliot@yahoo.com)

November Bird of the Month

Wild Turkey. Our bird for this month of Thanksgiving is the star attraction on a few of our county’s wilder wildlife management areas. Meleagris gallopavo is a striking bird, both its outrageous good looks and its overall size. Gobblers are big! As John James Audubon himself wrote, “The great size and beauty of the Wild Turkey, its value as a delicate and highly prized article of food, and the circumstance of its being the origin of the domestic race now generally dispersed over both continents, render it one of the most interesting of the birds indigenous to the United States of America.”

From the Cornell Lab’s website description: Wild Turkeys are very large, plump birds with long legs, wide, rounded tails, and a small head on a long, slim neck. They are dark overall with a bronze-green iridescence to most of their plumage. Their wings are dark, boldly barred with white. Their rump and tail feathers are broadly tipped with rusty or white. The bare skin of the head and neck varies from red to blue to gray. Wild Turkeys live in mature forests, particularly nut trees such as oak, hickory, or beech, interspersed with edges and fields. You may also see them along roads and in woodsy backyards. After being hunted out of large parts of their range, turkeys were reintroduced and are numerous once again

Come to our November meeting to hear more about this fascinating bird from our expert, Clive Pinnock.

(Photographer’s please note that next month’s December 2013 Bird will be the RUBY THROATED HUMMINGBIRD)