Chicago Wildlife Watch Talk

Wild Turkeys?

  • WillowSkye by WillowSkye

    Please excuse my lack of knowledge regarding USA & it's fauna but why haven't I seen any Wild Turkeys? Thought I would have seen some by now in the Forest Preserves/green spaces?? (sorry, @ForestPreserve, no relation meant to you farming with Wild Turkeys 😃 ) Google-ing unfortunately led to some scary surprise i.e. "Buy Wild Turkey Whiskey online - Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey". Won't even begin to ask what weird whiskey this is, but anyway, yes, where are your turkeys?

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  • yshish by yshish in response to WillowSkye's comment.

    Haha, had the same problems when looking for wild turkeys recently!

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  • abloss by abloss

    I've never seen nor heard of Wild Turkeys in the Chicago area (there may be historical records). They are seen in the southern part of Illinois. Now, the other kind of Wild Turkey - I have seen that in my liquor cabinet...

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  • llehrerlpzoo.org by llehrerlpzoo.org scientist

    Hmm there may or may not be a turkey-related blog post this week 😃 stay tuned!

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  • yshish by yshish

    Yay! 😃

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  • abloss by abloss

    Although, just after my post above, somebody reported a Wild Turkey in Lake County, northwest of the Chicago metro area. Ebird does show turkeys north and west of Chicago, but no reports in or near the city. Maybe this one was a pre-Thanksgiving escapee...

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  • yshish by yshish in response to abloss's comment.

    What a coincidence!

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  • abloss by abloss

    Z - Should have waited for half an hour!

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  • llehrerlpzoo.org by llehrerlpzoo.org scientist

    Here it is!
    http://www.lpzoo.org/blog/chicago-wildlife-watch/gobble-gobble

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  • abloss by abloss

    Liza - Thanks for the info. Were these birds seen in Cook County, and if so, where? I'd love to add them to my county list. Thanks!

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  • WillowSkye by WillowSkye

    Wow! Thanks Liza for the wonderful surprise of the Gobble-Gobble Blog and the added bonus of beautiful pictures of the Wild Turkeys 😃 And Yay! to that you've still got Turkeys in Chicago. I was beginning to worry that all that was left was that weird whiskey and that I've now read @abloss mentioning they've got a captive specimen of in the cabinet 😃 Happy Thanksgiving 😃

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  • yshish by yshish

    😃 Nice blog posts. So exciting to hear there are some wild turkeys hanging around somewhere!

    Btw, I think I've seen one, caught by a camera trap from another Zoo project, today!

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  • WillowSkye by WillowSkye

    Hey @yshish, in which other Zoo project did you see the Wild Turkey? Is it posted in Talk of that project? Would like to check it out Thanks 😃

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  • llehrerlpzoo.org by llehrerlpzoo.org scientist

    These photos were not in Cook County. I don't think we have seen any wild turkeys in Cook County yet.

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  • llehrerlpzoo.org by llehrerlpzoo.org scientist

    Glad you enjoyed it @WillowSkye!

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  • yshish by yshish in response to WillowSkye's comment.

    (These were from Wisconsin 😃)

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  • yshish by yshish

    Look at him! From another wildlife project (coming soon)

    w

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  • WillowSkye by WillowSkye

    Oh, Wow Z, he's Magnificent 😃 Is he displaying his feathers to attract some ladies? I was thinking of saying Ladybird but that would be weird towards Insects 😉 Really curious about the new project ....

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  • gardenmaeve by gardenmaeve

    Plenty wild turkeys in Maine and New Hampshire nowadays. We love to watch them display, and they bring each year's chicks into our orchard 😃 (Hi, yshish!)

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  • ForestPreserve by ForestPreserve moderator

    Yshish wins for quality, but I've got quantity. Spotted these suburban turkeys on the edge of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park near Cleveland, Ohio...the day after Thanksgiving.

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  • yshish by yshish in response to ForestPreserve's comment.

    Ah, you @ForestPreserve win for seeing them in real!! I just used a snapshot made by a camera trap.(

    Cool to hear so, @gardenameave ! 😃 Thanks for the info.

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  • abloss by abloss

    You want turkeys? I took these photos in March a few years ago in Arizona. They were showing off for the ladies. enter image description here enter image description hereenter image description here

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  • yshish by yshish in response to abloss's comment.

    Thank you, @abloss I think we were actually talking about the wild ones:) Anyway, your turkeys are really beautiful!! with impressive tails. It wouldn't be easy to choose one if I was a turkey lady 😄

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  • abloss by abloss

    Z - These ARE wild turkeys. The western subspecies is showier than the eastern. These photos were taken in the Coronado National Forest. They were seen at the Santa Rita Lodge, which has a viewing area for wildlife and hummingbirds, and the turkeys feed on the spilled birdseed. They are common all over the national forest and come and go at will.

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  • yshish by yshish in response to abloss's comment.

    Ah, sorry for my confusion! The illusion of not seeing wild turkeys was made by the surrounding around them. They seemed to be captured in a fenced yard or 'coop' or how it is called correctly. Thanks for the clarification! 😃

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  • llehrerlpzoo.org by llehrerlpzoo.org scientist

    beautiful turkey photos!

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  • abloss by abloss

    No problem, Zuzi. Santa Rita Lodge is in Madera Canyon, a mecca for bird and wildlife watchers. That fenced in area is only fenced on two sides. People can sit there and watch all sorts of animals, including coatimundis and ring-tailed cats and black bears rummage around, and up to ten species of hummingbirds show up there. I heard five species of owl the last time we were there. A neat place.

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  • abloss by abloss in response to llehrerlpzoo.org's comment.

    Thanks!

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  • yshish by yshish in response to abloss's comment.

    That's sounds as a really cool place where to spend time. Lucky you to hear five owl species at the same time. I rarely see/hear an owl of a single species in the wild 😦 Once I saw a couple or trio of Asio otus (Long-eared owl) which seem to follow us on our trip in the most Eastern Slovakia. We spotted them a couple of times during 3 hours. Weren't able to make a photo of them or make sure how many of them are there as they were moving and hiding. And once, a huge owl (not sure what species but possibly another L-E one) 'attacked me' while riding a car very slowly at night, on a field road out of the civilization. I almost went off the road as it made me startled. I didn't hit it but it was so close to the car windshield!

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  • WillowSkye by WillowSkye in response to yshish's comment.

    Hi Zuzi 😃 that was definitely not a nice experience but glad you made it through okay 😃 The male Spotted Eagle Owl Bubo africanus loves to swoop over people's heads from rooftops during mating season and is so bold it sits sometimes in the middle of the road and when a car approaches it opens its great big wings and just nonchalantly takes off, sometimes missing the car by centimetres ... some scary stuff. However, I love hearing the male and female calling to each other. The male says Hooo hooopoooo and the female answers with Hooo hoo hooo

    As for the turkeys - they are so beautiful 😃 We have what we call the Tarentaal here - in English Helmeted Guineafowl You can actually use their feathers to write with provided you have a pot of ink as in the olden times. Some people do Calligraphy with it 😃

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  • yshish by yshish in response to WillowSkye's comment.

    Oh, that must be a great experience with those owls! (envy)

    Guineafowls are funny birds 😃 (We see three of their species in Chimp&See project images.)

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