Wild Turkey Hen with at least six poults has discovered me filming her and begins a series of unusual alarm calls or "Putts" to alert her young and any other turkeys in the area to danger. She gathers the poults and begins to lead them to safety into the deep forest. Filmed in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Mother's Day will be busy for this Wild Turkey with six kids called poults. I love the expression of concern and the time and extreme caution she uses in getting the youngsters across the road and they seemingly have not a care in the world!
Interesting social behaviors of a large flock of Wild Turkeys high in the misty Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina in mid-July. True wild turkeys can be difficult to film acting naturally as they are quite skittish, especially in flocks. This flock was working the deep forest edge along a large clearing and I don't think they were aware of me or they would have ducked into the forest edge. The flock consists of several family groups with at least four adults and many poults, or young turkeys, some a little older than the others, all hatched earlier in spring. What is a little unusual about this flock is that there appears to be at least two adult males mixed in with one clearly showing his dominance in the classic fashion. Typically the adult males don't travel with the hens and flocks of young.
