Eastern Wild Turkey

Description:

Not a week after the closing of the hunting season I spotted this group strutting down a fence line near the highway... almost as if they knew the coast was clear.

Habitat:

The eastern wild turkey is the most widely distributed, abundant, and hunted turkey subspecies of the 5 distinct subspecies found in the United States. It inhabits roughly the eastern half of the country. The eastern wild turkey is found in the hardwood, mixed, and pine forests from New England and southern Canada to northern Florida and west to Texas, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota. It has also been successfully transplanted in California, Oregon, and Washington, states outside its suspected original range. L.J.P. Vieillot first described and named the eastern subspecies in 1817 using the word silvestris, meaning “forest” turkey. - NWTF