Wild Turkeys in New Mexico

I recently joined a group of volunteers whose task is to gather information about the ecology of the wild turkey population in the Valle Caldera National Preserve.  The project will last the entire summer and possibly into the autumn.

The wild turkey in this mountainous region of New Mexico is a subspecies called Merriam’s Turkey or Meleagris gallopavo merriami. Merriam’s Turkey likes to roost in older trees on steep mountain slopes below a ridge at an elevation roughly between 8,000-11,000 feet. The Valle Caldera Trust staff record the UTM coordinates of each tree located in each wild turkey roost site.  

First they have to identify the general location of each roosting  area. Next, trees in each area are inspected for evidence of turkeys. This evidence is commonly in the form of turkey droppings beneath the trees used as a roost.

A tree can be assumed to be an active roosting tree if lots of fresh turkey droppings are located on the ground beneath a tree. Or the droppings may be older indicating that a particular tree has been a roosting tree in the past and that turkeys may return to that site in the future. 

Surprisingly, the sex of a turkey can be determined from the shape of the dropping; the droppings from a hen are more compact e.g., coiled, looped, while the droppings from a Tom or gobbler are more extended e.g., straight, J-shaped (a desiccated dropping from a male is shown in the photo below).

 Occasionally, the presence of turkeys may be indicated by the presence of feathers such as from a recent kill by a predator. For example, masses of feathers maybe found on the ground beneath or close by a roost site. Natural predators include an excellent tree climber, the bobcat. 

Our task is to make careful measurements of the roost trees and to describe the habitat of each roost site. Tree measurements include each tree's location using UTM, tree diameter (circumference breast height), height, aspect (the compass direction a tree faces on the down slope measured from the down slope side of the tree, canopy height, crown classification, percent slope of land, general habitat type, trees per acre and type of tree.