||| ORCASIONAL MUSINGS BY STEVE HENIGSON |||
Flocks of wild turkeys live here and there on Orcas Island, but the bunch with which I’m most familiar is the one which lives on our north-east coast, at Buckhorn, along the road to Raccoon Point. This particular flock, when last seen, consisted of one mature tom, perhaps three or four hens, and a couple of jakes or jennies (immature toms and hens). It was evening, forage-for-dinner time, and I had to stop my car to let them cross the road.
When I see these birds, the very same two questions always pop into my mind: Where did they come from? How did they get here? Wild turkeys are native to the Pacific Northwest, just as they are native to most of the rest of North America, but we’re on an island, far out at sea. Why did they end up here?
Wild turkeys are among the least aerodynamic of birds, which has mostly to do with their power-to-weight ratio. They’re big and heavy, and even their large wings just don’t do a very good job. A wild turkey can fly, but neither particularly well, nor for any meaningful distance. Instead, they walk and run.
When a wild turkey does fly, it’s most often just directly upwards for a few feet, to a tree branch upon which to roost for the night. The rest of wild turkey life is spent upon the ground, which is where they court, breed, nest, and eat.
Shaw-to-Orcas is probably too far for a mature wild turkey to fly, so Anacortes-to-Lopez is surely out of the question. But if they didn’t fly over, how did they get here? They don’t swim, and they certainly didn’t buy ferry tickets. Could a mating pair have floated over on an errant log? Or maybe the turkey, or a pre-turkey, progenitor species, has been here since the last Ice Age, when it was possible to walk on over. The funny thing is, nobody, neither naturalist nor hunter, seems to know for sure.
I suppose that the truth might be found by asking someone from the Clapp family. They maintained hunting facilities here for many, many years. They probably hunted wild turkeys. Maybe one of them could have been the wild turkey importer. Maybe it was Norton Clapp, Weyerhaeuser Corporation’s former President, whose once-private hunting reservation is now the San Juan Preservation Trust’s Turtleback Mountain Preserve. Or perhaps it was Bill Clapp, the philanthropist, who still has a home near Deer Harbor. (I wish that I were well-enough acquainted with him to ask.)
One must possess exceptional hunting skills, to kill a wild turkey. They’re smart and wary birds. If one of the flock sees you, none will come close, so even very slight noise and movement is out. Successfully bagging a wild turkey is real proof of your ability. That leaves only the question: “What do you do with it, now that you’ve got it?” Wild turkeys are tough!
One source suggests making sausage. Another discusses biscuits and turkey gravy. Perhaps wisely, none of them says anything about oven-roasted, whole wild turkey.
And remembering the combative stares I got from the flock that was crossing the road in front of my car, I think that I’ll let the whole subject of cooking a well-hunted bird pass. I’ll get the domestic version from Island Market.
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Never rat out my turkeys locations due to lookyloos from T Virusland.
Wild Turkeys are not native to Washington, Oregon or Idaho and are an imported species. Here’s a link to an article from a Spokane newspaper that shows the original North America range.
The wild turkeys on Martha’s Vineyard are considered to be domesticated feral birds. In other words they are the descendants of farm birds that escaped into the wild. Perhaps that happened here and at other sites in the northwest. FWIW Wild Turkey is the official game bird of Massachusetts, not to be confused with that stuff distilled in Lawrenceburg KY.
Such a dear turkey story. I have wondered the same since arriving here. 1987…Eastman Rd. I had to slow to a stop to make way for large flock ofturkeys. I think the first i haddver seen wild
Julia: Thanks for the correction. I did some further research, and found that you are entirely correct. Three different turkey sub-species were introduced into Washington State, probably during the 1950s.
Steve, the Buckhorn turkeys are not wild nor native. They were purchased as chicks by someone who used to live higher on the mountain. It is my understanding that turkeys “go down”, never up and over a period of time foraged down the hill and were no longer “pets” or the intended food for a local Thanksgiving. So we ground level residents now get to smile or cuss the flock when they stop us on the roadway.
Thanks, Karen.
Mystery solved!