Talking Turkey

Wherein, we pay homage to the magnificent creature that Ben Franklin declared to be "a bird of courage."

John James Audubon, artist, The Birds of America, c.1838.

by John B. Green III

As you go to your local food mart this week to select one of those frozen behemoths, too overgrown in life to walk or fly, remember, please remember, that the grocery store turkey is descended from a stronger and nobler breed - the American Wild Turkey.  Nearly extirpated in North Carolina in the 20th century, by 1970 there were estimated to be only 2,000 Eastern Wild Turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) left in the state.  Fortunately, through a decades-long project of live-trapping and relocating turkeys from other areas, North Carolina's turkey population has been restored to more than 265,000 birds today.  What follows is a selection of accounts by North Carolina writers of encounters with the wary, elusive, and beautiful Wild Turkey. 

Artist unknown, John Brickell, The Natural History of North-Carolina, 1737.

The wild Turkeys I should have spoken of, when I treated of the Land-Fowl.  There are great Flocks of these in Carolina.   I have seen about five hundred in a Flock; some of them are very large.  I never weigh'd any myself, but have been inform'd of one that weigh'd near sixty Pound Weight.  I have seen half a Turkey feed eight hungry Men two Meals.  Sometimes the wild breed with the tame ones, which, they reckon, makes them very hardy, as I believe it must.  I see no manner of Difference betwixt the wild Turkeys and the tame ones; only the wild are ever of one Colour, (viz.) a dark gray, or brown, and are excellent Food.  They feed on Acorns, Huckle-Berries, and many other sorts of Berries that Carolina affords.   - from A New Voyage to Carolina by John Lawson, 1709

Duane Raver, artist, Wildlife in North Carolina, April 1977

We flushed a wild turkey hen and seven or eight half-grown young ones up out of a thicket of reeds.  They flew up so suddenly that we all just sat gaping at them.  I didn't have any idea turkeys could fly so swiftly - the tame ones are so clumsy.  But those wild ones sailed off to the woods like bullets and flapped their wings but once or twice.   - from Down Goose Creek by William Seeman, 1931

David Williams, artist, Wildlife in North Carolina, October 1986

A sudden roar of powerful wings and a crash of branches from a group of trees on the creek bank almost abreast of the canoe - and seven great turkey gobblers left their roosting place and winged their way back into the depths of the swamp.  A wild turkey is always grand, but that fact is never impressed on me more strongly than when a big gobbler unexpectedly takes wing from a tree near at hand.  Multiply that by seven - and you have a real thrill!.  - from A North Carolina Naturalist, H.H.Brimley: Selections from his writings, 1949

Ken Taylor, photographer, The Wild Turkey in North Carolina, 1989

The Old Man whispered, "As soon as it comes gray light you're going to see some turkeys.  They may fly in, light in trees, look around, and then come down.  They don't do it so much in the morning, but I never trust a turkey.  He's smarter than you are most of the time.  Likely they'll walk.  If it's a little flock, there'll be a gobbler and mebbe three, four, five hens.  If it's a big flock, there'll be more'n one gobbler and a whole passel of hens. I want you to shoot whatever's biggest that's closest to you, when I punch you, and not before."  - from The Old Man and the Boy by Robert Ruark, 1957

Charles L. Ripper, artist, From Laurel Hill to Siler's Bog, 1969

The big gobbler had become a legend long before I saw him.  Black as a crow, and with his small blue head raised to its full four-foot height above the ground, he was the most magnificent wild animal - furred or feathered - I have ever seen.  There is something noble and touching in the pride of a wild thing.  I saw it in the black gobbler, in his aloneness and in his defiance, mixed with an uncanny keenness of eyes and ears that made even those who hunted him look upon him with awe.  There was mystery about him, too.  Perhaps it lay in his strange disappearances and his wild cunning that made him invulnerable for years to even the smartest turkey hunters.  - from Laurel Hill to Siler's Bog: The Walking Adventures of a Naturalist by John K. Terres, 1969