Turkeys can cover some territory

KIOMATIA — Paul Day sits on a bench in an equipment barn on the Graff Ranch in Red River County, safe for the moment from the grumbly thunderstorm and the rain that pelts the tin roof, reflecting on what he's learned so far.

Photo by Marty Berry (enlarge photo) Marty Berry was shocked when he saw these turkeys walk off into a creek and come swimming across. He took out a camera and snapped photos of the turkeys. Most experts don't expect turkeys to swim.

Day is doing turkey research, eastern turkey research for Stephen F. Austin State University, trying to find and help flip the switch that moves eastern birds from expensive imports to established residents of the states.

Texas Parks and Wildlife has stocked eastern turkeys for more than a decade up and down the eastern slice of Texas known mainly as the Pineywoods. Things were going well and in some areas, such as the Graff Ranch, populations seemed to be expanding and filling slots left when the turkeys were extirpated as much as a century ago.

But other areas have suffered almost inexplicable losses, regions with spectacular habitat and no hunting pressure. Predators, rainfall (too much or too little), moon phases — researchers and ranchers have blamed anything and everything — but the truth is that nobody knows why the turkeys do well in one space and fail in another. The Stephen F. Austin study is an attempt to figure out what's happening, partly through research into the traveling and nesting habits of the birds.

Turkeys are notorious travelers. They split up to search for nesting cover. They band together by sex and move long distances from summer to winter ranges. They'll go miles for food and don't mind doing mini-marathons in a single day. The Red River County turkeys are living proof, Day says.

"I've got nine hens on three ranches (with tracking devices), and I'm radio-tracking birds every day," he says. "They're covering lots of ground right now. I caught two hens near the river, and they flew the river and are in Oklahoma now." Another hen went walkabout, covering more than six miles in two days, but even that distance is not much to some turkeys. The question is, however, why would seemingly normal hens, once bred, leave perfectly good habitat and travel great distances to nest in an unfamiliar area.

It could be that a couple of years of drought have subtly changed the ground level food and cover so that the turkeys don't feel comfortable with their current homes. Or maybe it's just something turkeys do, Day says. The three-year study is still in its infancy and it will take some time to sort out the findings. Day does know this: The hens he tracked FLEW across the Red River. A Texas rancher and hunter has seen them do something even stranger.

"I saw these turkeys just walk off into a creek and start swimming," says Marty Berry of Corpus Christi. Berry has pictures to prove it, too. Most hunters and outdoors people haven't seen turkeys swim. Most of the time, a gobbler will hang up and refuse to cross a tiny ditch, with or without water.

"I've asked lots of people and they all say turkeys can't swim," Berry says. His photos prove that wrong, but just how good at swimming are turkeys? Pretty good, says Scott Vance, director of field conservation for the National Wild Turkey Federation, headquartered in Edgefield, S.C.

"They generally won't swim," Vance says, "but they can swim immediately after they're born. It's very unusual to see them swim, but they can swim."

Usually it's poults who swim, Vance says, because they're either too young to fly or aren't confident in their flying ability and so they swim across a pond or creek rather than fly. Leave it to a bird that can fly faster than a quail to doubt its own ability.

A turkey poult can fly at 14 days but usually not very far. Once he's fully feathered, he can fly long distances but typically saves that for times when he can't run away from danger.

Vance was much more intrigued by Berry's photo of a mature gobbler swimming with three poults and by reports that the gobbler had been protecting the poults after bobcats killed their mother. "I've never heard of a gobbler sharing brooding (of chicks)," Vance says.