How Wild Turkeys Find Love [View all]

As spring bursts forth, wild turkeys begin the mating game. Groups congregate in lawns and fields — and sometimes in the middle of the street. Males puff out their iridescent feathers, fan their tails and drag their wings on the ground in a vie for the right to breed. Their faces and necks turn dazzling shades of blue and red.

Once rare and elusive denizens of America’s woodlands, these heaviest of the galliform birds (chickens and their relatives) have gone urban. Wild turkeys live in the residential neighborhoods around my home in Madison, Wis.

A few years ago, their elaborate courtship displays fascinated me so much that I began to photograph them — and, as I’ve learned, there’s more happening than meets the eye.


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/21/travel/wild-turkeys-mates.html