Hi all, A friend of mine observed the behavior described below. Any ideas? At about 10:00 o'clock in the morning a gang of 12 birds wandered onto our front pasture. We watched as the gang formed into 2 ratherloose groups and commenced chasing each other around in a sort of figure eight pattern for a couple of minutes. We had seen this
behavior before, but not what followed.We watched a lone turkey fly in and land about 100 yards away from the group. Here was the unusual part. As soon as the lone turkey landed, the gang of 12 quickly formed an almost perfect circle about 10 feet around. They all dropped to to the ground as if nesting. They were about 2 feet apart and all of the birds faced outside of the circle. Then the lone bird began slowly walking down the hill toward the group. The bird was very cautious and stopped often, watching the gang carefully. When the lone bird finally got about fifty feet from the group, it too dropped down as if nesting. There was no movement by any of the birds for about five minutes. Then the bird that was closest to the lone visitor broke rank from the circle and slowly walked over to the lone bird some 50 feet away. We thought they were going to fight, but they did not. When the the bird who broke rank reached the lone bird, the loner stood up, they circled around each other once or twice, and then they walked back to the gang still formed up in the circle. When the 2 birds reached the group, they all stood up and continued with their normal feeding habits. They took their time, crossed our front pasture, drank water from our pond and marched up into the woods.
This was quite a morning show for us. We have tried to find literature on the Internet regarding wild turkey behavioral patterns, but have not found any reference to what we observed. We did read that when the turkeys are under threat, they have been known to form into a semicircle and march toward the threat with wings splayed. Anyway, we are fascinated and very curious. We wonder if anyone out there might know what the ritual meant.
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