Photo courtesy Charles Martinez
This week’s Bird of the Week, compliments of the Weminuche Audubon Society and Audubon Rockies, is the wild turkey.
Due to its association with the Thanksgiving holiday, the wild turkey is one of the most recognizable birds in North America. Its likeness adorns greeting cards, decorations and school art projects. This familiar bird possesses physical features with unusual names that beg a closer look.
Turkeys have the ability to rapidly change the color of head features between red, white and blue depending on excitability and breeding status. Warty bumps on the head and neck, more pronounced in males, are called caruncles. The bright skin hanging from the turkey’s neck is the wattle. During breeding season, a bright red wattle signals male fitness to hens looking to mate. If the turkey is threatened, blood drains from the wattle, turning it a bright blue color. In both sexes, the bare skin of the wattle acts to dissipate heat in hot weather.
Another feature more pronounced in males is a fleshy, blood-filled appendage hanging down over the beak called the snood. To a hen, a long, red, male snood signals a strong healthy mate. Although both sexes can form a bundle of feathers called the beard which hangs from the chest, this also is more common in males and gets longer with age.
Despite fossil records documenting the presence of wild turkeys in North America for millions of years and native peoples both revering and domesticating them, loss of food and habitat from deforestation and market hunting during the 19th and early 20th centuries were causing widespread disappearances of wild turkey populations.
Starting in the 1940s, a program of capturing and relocating wild turkeys in the United States began to reverse this trend. In 1973, the National Wild Turkey Federation, with a mission to conserve turkeys and habitats, was formed. In New England states where the wild turkey was nearly non-existent 50 years ago, populations have exploded.
Rural birds are becoming almost too comfortable in suburban yards with a source of food in gardens and under bird feeders.
For information on events, visit www.weminucheaudubon.org and www.facebook.com/weminucheaudubon/.
Picha ya heshima Charles Martinez Wiki hii Ndege wa Wiki, pongezi ya Weminuche Audubon Society na Audubon Rockies, ni wild turkey. Kwa sababu ya uhusiano wake na sikukuu ya Shukrani, kaliki wa porini ni mojawapo ya ndege wanaotambuliwa zaidi katika Amerika Kaskazini. Mfano wake hupambwa kwenye kadi za salamu, mapambo, na miradi ya sanaa ya shule. Ndege huyu anayejulikana sana ana sifa za kimwili na majina yasiyo ya kawaida ambayo yanahitaji kuchunguzwa kwa makini zaidi. Uturuki wana uwezo wa kubadilisha rangi ya nyuso zao kati ya nyekundu, nyeupe na bluu kulingana na uwezo wao wa kusisimua na hali yao ya kuzaliana. Vipande vyenye viwiko kwenye kichwa na shingo, ambavyo huonekana zaidi kwa wanaume, huitwa caruncles. Ngozi nyangavu inayotandazwa kwenye shingo ya Uturuki ni wattle. Wakati wa majira ya kuzaliana, wattle nyekundu yenye kung'aa huonyesha kwamba kiume ni mwenye afya nzuri kwa kuku wanaotafuta kuoa. Ikiwa punda-mwitu anatishwa, damu hutoka kwenye punda-mwitu, na kugeuka kuwa na rangi ya bluu. Katika jinsia zote mbili, ngozi ya wattle hutumia joto wakati wa joto. Sehemu nyingine inayoonekana zaidi kwa wanaume ni kiungo chenye nyama na kilichojaa damu kinachoinuka juu ya mdomo kinachoitwa snood. Kwa kuku, pua ndefu, nyekundu, ya kiume huonyesha kwamba ana mwenzi mwenye nguvu na afya. Ingawa jinsia zote mbili zinaweza kuunda kundi la manyoya yanayoitwa ndevu ambayo hutegemea kwenye kifua, hii pia ni ya kawaida zaidi kwa wanaume na inakuwa ndefu zaidi na umri. Ingawa rekodi za visukuku zinaonyesha kuwa paka wa mwituni waliishi Amerika Kaskazini kwa mamilioni ya miaka na watu wa asili waliwaheshimu na kuwafuga, kupoteza chakula na makazi kutokana na ukataji miti na uwindaji wa soko wakati wa karne ya 19 na mapema ya 20 kulisababisha kutoweka kwa idadi kubwa ya paka wa mwituni. Tangu miaka ya 1940 na kuendelea, mpango wa kuwinda na kuhamisha punda-mwitu wa mwituni nchini Marekani ulianza kubadilisha hali hiyo. Mwaka 1973 shirika la National Wild Turkey Federation lilianzishwa na lengo la kuhifadhi wanyama hao. Katika New England, ambapo Uturuki wa mwituni haukuwapo miaka 50 iliyopita, idadi ya watu imepanda sana. Ndege wa vijijini wanaanza kuishi vizuri sana katika viwanja vya vijijini, na chanzo cha chakula ni katika bustani na chini ya vyakula vya ndege. Kwa habari zaidi, tembelea www.mw.org na www.mw.org.