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PrintGoing Wild with Turkeys
The holiday bird on your Thanksgiving table was probably plucked from a supermarket freezer bin. The frozen, plastic wrapped turkey may be convenient holiday fare, but Native Americans and early European settlers knew its ancestor, the wild turkey, to be useful for more than just food.
Leg spurs were used for arrowheads. Feathers stuffed mattresses. Wings were fashioned into brooms; tails into fans. But it’s probably likely that the turkey didn’t make the holiday menu until sometime in the early 1800s.
Ironically, by 1900, the wild turkey population plummeted from overhunting and loss of woodland habitat. Today, however, the bird is a conservation success story. Its numbers have increased dramatically due to reintroduction programs and managed hunting. Trap and transplant programs were used by state game agencies to relocate birds to new areas.
In our region, flocks can be spotted along rural roads in Berrien and Cass County, Michigan and the northern tier of counties in Indiana. In St. Joseph County (Indiana) alone, turkeys can be found at Potato Creek State Park, St. Patrick’s and Bendix Woods County Parks.
Mike McNarney of Granger enjoys watching and hunting turkeys. He’s seen them in Lakeville, along Redfield Road in Cass County and even in his own backyard. He says most toms or gobblers have a live weight of about 20 pounds. Females, or hens, and young males, called “jakes,” are lighter.
This time of year, flocks of hens and poults merge with flocks of males, after spending the summer apart. “Large flocks of 50 birds or more are not uncommon in winter,” Mike said.
After crops are harvested, flocks can sometimes be seen feeding on waste soybeans and corn. Mike explained, “They feed when they come out of their roost and again before they head back into the trees at the end of the day.”
Roosting is perhaps one of quirkier habits of these large birds. Seeing a flock of turkeys resting high in the tree branches is a surprising sight. The strategy helps them avoid predators.
This fall and winter, look for wild turkeys. Keep an eye out in mature oak-beech forests where acorns and beech nuts (favorite turkey foods) are plentiful.
Thanksgiving Day Games
Here are two “All Ages” games to get you off the couch this holiday!
Turkey Trot Game
It just wouldn't seem like Thanksgiving without a post-dinner football game.
What you need:
- Outdoor play area
- Plastic or paper grocery sacks
- Twisty ties
- Newspaper
- Construction paper
- Tape or stapler
- Scissors
- Markers
Every team of two players needs a turkey mascot. While the parents are enjoying after-dinner coffee, the kids can stuff each bag and twisty tie it closed. Cut out a turkey head and tail with the assorted craft materials. Attach the heads and tails to the stuffed bags.
How to Play
The object of the game is for pairs of players to cross the finish line with their bird. The trick is they can’t hold the bird in their hands, and the partners must link arms back to back.
The first team to get there without dropping their bird or unlinking their arms wins. In non-competitive play, each team can go separately to see if they can make it.
Be sure to try it a few times with different partner combinations: kid-kid, adult-adult or kid-adult are all options. Children love to see adults play, and parents can be great role models for sportsmanship in these types of games.
Ready for an advanced version? Try teams of three, and players can’t use any part of their hands, arms or mouth to transport their mascot.
Forward Pass
What you’ll need:
- Chopsticks for every player
- A place for children to collect small nature items outside
Send the children outside to each find something they think they can pick up with chopsticks. Ideas might be acorns or other seeds, pebbles, a leaf or small twig. Have all the players sit in a circle with their chopsticks.
How to Play
Put all the items in a bowl in front of one player. Using her chopsticks, she begins to pass the items one at a time to the player next to her, who receives it with his chopsticks. If you want to keep score, tally a point for every time someone in the circle drops an item. A LOW score is best! Small children that can’t maneuver chopsticks can use a spoon.
If the weather isn’t conducive for outside collection of interesting items, try things such as a nuts, cranberries, raisins and peas.
