08/30/2010
Lamoine Maine Wild Turkeys.
Driving towards Acadia National Park in the mornings around SeaCat’s Rest, you are very likely to find a flock of turkeys in the road. This is a new trend here in the Northeast. This group of birds has been surviving and growing into a real spectacle around here. We want these birds around for three reasons.
First, they are entertaining and eat things we don’t want around. Funny birds making funny noises in the woods. They wander around the neighborhood. As they go they consume mass quantities of small insects, including the deer tick. The deer tick is famous for spreading lime disease here in Maine, and anything that reduces it’s population should be encouraged. Turkeys have keen eyesight and can find the small ticks in the fields and woods.
Second they are a source of wild food for people. Yes, you can hunt turkeys and eat them. Maine has two turkey hunts each year, spring and fall.
Third they support other wildlife as food. For the small mammal predators, turkeys are an excellent source of food in the winter when it can be tough to find enough food to survive. The turkey is a native bird that was hunted out of the area by people. This left the many small mammals without the safety net of a this prey species in the environment. That in turn led to more predation on our domestic animals like chickens and other birds raised for meat and eggs by our local folks. When I raised guinea fowl the predators were incredible and included owls, red hawks, foxes, and raccoons. I’m sure the bobcats and fishers were around too, although I didn’t actually see them. Guinea hens fill a similar niche in the environment as turkeys do. I had many fewer ticks to pull off my cats in those years.
Did you know that turkeys roost in trees at night? Except for when the female turkeys are sitting on their nests, you can find them perched high up in trees. They will often fly into the trees for safety in the daytime when they feel threatened.
Giving Thanks for Wild Turkeys
Feathered dinosaurs of the American woodsBy Robert Winkler
About the AuthorWhile most Americans in late November think about eating turkey, I think about seeing one—not the overweight, pale, domesticated bird that ends up on the Thanksgiving table, but rather its streamlined, bronzy ancestor: the wild turkey.
This ground-dwelling native of North American forests is fairly common now, but only 30 years ago it was nonexistent across much of its historic range, a casualty of overhunting and deforestation.
English naturalist John Josselyn was one of the first to note the turkey’s decline. In 1672, after an extended visit to Maine, he wrote: “The English and the Indians having now destroyed the breed, so that ’tis very rare to meet with a wild Turkie in the woods.”
The estimated 10 million turkeys that roamed North America before European settlement dwindled to a fragmented population of 30,000 by the early 1900s. They had been extirpated from 18 of 39 states they originally inhabited.
I glimpsed my first wild turkeys in the late 1970s at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, but it took another decade for me to find them in my home woods. By then, reintroduction programs in New England and elsewhere were proving successful.
Members of remnant populations had been captured in rocket-propelled nets and moved to forested regions where no wild turkeys had been seen for a century or more. Sustained by good habitat—extensive, open woods with waterways and adjacent fields—and protected by hunting suspensions, many of the relocated birds thrived.
Wild turkeys now occur in all of the lower 48 states, and their number has risen to more than 5.5 million.
One of the advantages of staying here in Lamoine, and not in an urban area on your vacation is the chance to see wildlife that we cherish around here. We do have many predators include great horned owls, bobcats, and foxes, so wariness is in their blood. Unleashed dogs take a heavy toll, and their return has put their worst enemy—human hunters—back on their trail.
So, slow down and let the turkeys wander as they search out their breakfast food. You’ll be richer three ways.
Filed under Lamoine, Nature by on Aug 30th, 2010. Comment.































A Field Guide to to the Birds of Eastern and Central North America
