This time of year Rosslyn’s wildlife cameras document a noticeable uptick in activity amongst our natural neighbors. Springtime spurs mating rituals of all flavors, but reviewing recent images (including the wild turkey below, one of *many* wild turkey photos lately) my mind turns to wild turkey nesting.
Perhaps you recollect my June 27, 2013 update, “Mysterious Speckled Egg”? With Katie’s always able assistance I concluded that I’d discovered a wild turkey eggshell.
Here’s a quick recap.
Then I discovered the mysterious speckled egg. That’s right, what at first eluded me as a mushroom born of too much rain, turned out to be a large eggshell. I say large, but in truth it’s only large for the sort of eggshells I usually see around the yard in the spring. Songbirds, robins, etc. I did see several beautiful sky blue robin eggs this spring, but this speckled eggshell was slightly larger then a chicken egg. The coloring is relatively accurate in the photograph: slightly off-white, maybe closer to café au lait than the white of a puffball, and speckled. Small brown markings dapple the surface. I assume the mystery bird had already hatched as the shell was empty, though only a small area of the underside of the egg was broken away. It was sitting in the middle of the grass, in the middle of the orchard.
What sort of bird hatched from it? Where had it gone. Was it safe and sound and dry? Or perhaps the shell was dropped here by a crow after a protein-rich brunch…
[…]
Many thanks to Katie Shepard for her sleuthing. She lead me to this comparison of eggs image which shows an egg that looks suspiciously similar to the shell I found. In the photograph, the brownish egg on the far left is from a guinea hen, and the egg on the far right if from a peafowl. But those two middle eggs are from turkeys. The larger turkey egg with well pronounced brown speckles is a ringer!
Given our high population of wild turkeys, even after the kamikaze turkey episode, it makes plenty of sense that this egg hatched a baby wild turkey.
(Source: Mysterious Speckled Egg)
And here is the pretty eggshell. 
No longer a mystery, I began to keep my eyes peeled for wild turkey nesting sites while rambling Rosslyn’s backland. And yet, despite the abundance of wild turkeys that make their home in our wildlife sanctuary I’ve never once come across a wild turkey nesting site. Clever fowl!
If you, like I, find yourself curious about the gestation, incubation, and hatching of wild turkey, the best I can currently offer you is this.
It takes hens about two weeks to lay a full complement of nine to 13 eggs. Hens will only visit the nesting site long enough to deposit her egg for the day. The rest of her time will be spent elsewhere feeding and roosting.
At the end of the laying period, incubation starts. During this time, the hen puts herself in danger to stay on the nest day and night for about 28 days. She needs to bulk up prior to nesting and may take a brief recess period around mid-day to feed on protein-packed insects.
(Source: The National Wild Turkey Federation)
Hopefully, sometime soon our cameras will capture the inside scoop. Until then, look before you step when wandering North Country woods!
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