Courtesy Photo: Tom Thomson
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Each year in winter, New Hampshire Fish and Game asks the public to provide information on turkey flocks in New Hampshire.
Bird feeders are one of the main sources of food for turkeys in the winter, so it makes sense to rely on homeowners and people who have bird feeders for information on how many turkeys they see.
In 2024, New Hampshire Fish and Game reported 804 flocks of turkeys — totaling 14,150 birds — but that's not the full statewide population. The agency estimates that there are between 40,000 and 50,000 turkeys in the state.
What are the turkeys doing in the winter, anyway?
NH Audubon’s Chris Martin (who co-hosts Something Wild) says they're basically just trying to keep warm, since they are at the northernmost extent of their range.
“They can fluff up their feathers to trap warm air inside like a down comforter," he said.
Turkeys also have the ability to put on a lot of fat, more so than most birds, and the food that they eat helps them to do that.
Turkeys scratch at the snow on sunny south slopes, where oak and beech trees grow to uncover a staple of their diet, beech nuts and acorns. They also congregate to find food around ornamental trees, orchards and under crabapple trees.
You often see large winter flocks in agricultural fields, picking up corn and grain. In fact, the biggest flocks are in the Connecticut River Valley, a heavily agricultural area.
“In the area around Haverhill, [New Hampshire] they've documented as many as 75 to 85 turkeys in a single flock,” says Martin.
Flocks are aggregate groups of families, mostly female and young. The male turkeys, toms, tend to have their own flock.
Turkeys spend the night in trees
Flocks have roost trees where they spend the night to be safe from predators on the ground, like coyotes and bobcats.
They tend to favor the tallest trees they can find, particularly pines and hemlocks, because conifers provide more thermal cover; a pocket of warmth held inside the conifer's dense vegetation.
“They fly up at dusk," says Something Wild co-host Dave Anderson, who works with the Forest Society. "Then at 7:30 in the morning, they come sailing down into openings."
It's safer for turkeys to stay in the trees until daylight.
How they spend their turkey days
During the winter, turkeys tend to seek out south-facing slopes, where the snow is more shallow. Thanks to their dark feathers, they can absorb the warmth of the sun.
South-facing slopes also tend to grow red oak, white oak and beech trees, which provide the acorns and beechnuts that are a staple of their winter diet.
Turkey transplants
NH Audubon has been doing Christmas bird counts in Pittsburg since 1953, but turkeys weren't recorded on account until 2005.
“Of course, in the 1950s, there were no turkeys in New Hampshire,” says Martin.
Fish and Game reintroduced turkeys in New Hampshire beginning in the mid 1970s.
The population was aided in its expansion in the state by translocations, which transported the turkeys to areas that they weren't present, to grow the population even faster.
This episode is dedicated to Ted Walski, NH Fish and Game turkey biologist from 1973 to 2019. He helped accelerate the range expansion of turkeys in the state by translocating them. Walski passed away in 2023.
If you want to report a winter flock of turkeys, fill out the form on the NH Fish and Game website.