{"id":480,"date":"2011-11-23T20:19:38","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T04:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.windemuths.com\/?p=480"},"modified":"2012-01-07T06:30:33","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T14:30:33","slug":"the-thanksgiving-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.windemuths.com\/?p=480","title":{"rendered":"The Thanksgiving Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Excited Wild Turkey<\/p><\/div>\n

Even though there are a number of people who don\u2019t eat turkey on Thanksgiving, yet when we think of this special day, the turkey stands out as the classic symbol for good eating for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.\u00a0 Throughout the history of the United States, the turkey has stood out as an important member of the bird family, in fact the turkey, if Benjamin Franklin could have had his way, would have become the national bird instead of the Bald Eagle.<\/p>\n

The wild turkey is a distinct-looking bird, with its large size, its iridescent brown feathers, and its gray head and neck which turns a striking shade of red, white or blue when it becomes excited or distressed.\u00a0 The turkey, as well as the peacock, uses his feathers to attract a mate.\u00a0 In the spring, male turkeys, also called \u201cTom Turkeys\u201d or \u201cGobblers\u201d puff up their bodies, spread their tail feathers and strut around shaking these feathers letting out grunts or gobbles every so often.\u00a0 This \u201cTurkey Trot\u201d is for attracting as many hens as possible for mates.\u00a0 The Tom Turkey is not monogamous by any means!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The hen after mating prepares a nest under a bush in the woods and lays up to 18 tan and speckled brown eggs.\u00a0 She will incubate these eggs for close to a month when they hatch into poults.\u00a0 It will be another two weeks before the poults can fly.\u00a0 The immature turkeys will stay with the mom for up to a full year.\u00a0 During this whole time, the male does his own thing, not helping at all with the raising of the young.\u00a0 His job was complete after mating.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Most people seldom eat wild turkeys.\u00a0 It is the domestic variety that is the main attraction for the Thanksgiving dinner.\u00a0 The domestic turkey\u2019s weight is generally double the weight of its wild relative, and because of its weight, the domesticated turkey by and large cannot fly.<\/p>\n

The pictures I have on this page are of wild turkeys that I have photographed.\u00a0 Most of my turkey\u00a0 photographs I took on my way to Glenwood, Washington. This is a trip I take, at least, once a year in the fall capturing the glorious colors of the aspen and cottonwood that show up during that time.\u00a0 On the way, many times I run across bands of wild turkeys.\u00a0\u00a0 One day I followed one of these bands into an orchard.\u00a0 I lost them there, but remembered I had my IPod with me which had the Tom Turkey Gobble on it.\u00a0 I played this for a minute or so and soon had the whole group of turkeys(about 15) charging at me being led by a very large Gobbler, tail feathers distended and gobbling for all he was worth.\u00a0 I quickly turned off my IPod and very soon the group quieted down.\u00a0 It was only then, after taking some deep breaths, that I started taking pictures—from my car window.<\/p>\n

Whether we have turkey or not for Thanksgiving dinner, may we all remember what we are truly thankful for and possibly we could all share that with at least one other person.<\/p>\n

Happy Thanksgiving!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even though there are a number of people who don\u2019t eat turkey on Thanksgiving, yet when we think of this special day, the turkey stands out as the classic symbol for good eating for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.\u00a0 Throughout the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[31,7,25,26,34,32,33,20],"class_list":["post-480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ramblings","tag-birding","tag-birds","tag-nesting","tag-ramblings-2","tag-thanksgiving","tag-turkey","tag-wild-turkey","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.windemuths.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.windemuths.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.windemuths.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.windemuths.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.windemuths.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=480"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.windemuths.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":504,"href":"https:\/\/blog.windemuths.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions\/504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.windemuths.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.windemuths.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.windemuths.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}