What Causes the Color Changes? The color changes on a turkey's head result from physiological mechanisms involving its thin skin and an extensive network of capillaries. The bird can rapidly control the blood flow to these capillaries, altering the color. For instance, when a turkey becomes excited, agitated, or dominant, blood rushes to the head, causing it to swell and turn a vibrant red.
Nature's Mood Ring: What a Turkey's Head Can Tell You About How They Are Feeling By: Dean Taylor The wild turkey is a fascinating bird, with its raptor-like feet, coarse and dangling chest beard, and a tendency to challenge everything from lightning to car alarms with its thundering gobble. Turkeys are a familiar sight during the fall season, known for their large size, distinctive gobbling calls, and colorful plumage. One of the most noticeable features of a turkey is the coloration on their head and neck, which can change dramatically depending on the turkey's mood and health.
Turkey Head Color Basics The heads and necks of turkeys contain specialized skin called snoods and. These versions are caused by albinism and melanism, conditions which occur in many animals. Melanistic Wild Turkeys overproduce the pigment melanin, making them jet black in color-the gothest turkey out there.
Rarer, though, are albinos, a condition marked by white skin and feathers along with light pink or red eyes. Hunting Color-Phase Turkeys If you ever have a color-phase turkey enter within shooting range, it's important to know the regulations. Hatfield said that he knows of no states that prohibit the harvest of color-phased turkeys, but advises that every hunter must know the regulations before pulling the trigger.
3. Patriotic Heads The wild turkey's bald head can change color in seconds with excitement or emotion. The birds' heads can be red (pink), white, or blue.
4. Loud and Fast Turkeys' gobbles can be heard a mile or more away and they are fast on their feet with a top running speed of about 25 miles per hour. Do female turkeys heads change colors? They change color.
"When they're breeding or when they're aggressive, more blood goes into their head - it's sort of like people who get flushed when really excited or mad," says retired ornithologist (a person who studies birds) and author Roger Lederer. The sight of a turkey is often captivating, especially when its head undergoes a dramatic color change. But what exactly does it mean when a turkey's head turns white? The answer is multifaceted, encompassing everything from blood flow and emotional state to health and even mating displays.
This article dives deep into the fascinating world of turkey coloration, exploring the science behind. Did you know that turkeys change color depending on their mood? Well, turkey skin, it turns out, can shift from red to blue to white, thanks to bundles of collagen that are interspersed with a dense array of blood vessels. It is this color-shifting characteristic that gives turkeys the name "seven-faced birds" in Japanese and Korean.
Many turkeys, especially the toms, will have a light-blue tint to their faces. This is normal facial coloration and is used by the toms (and hens, to a lesser extent) to attract a mate and show to other turkeys how fit and dominant they are. To a small degree, turkeys can change the color of their faces, becoming more flushed if they get excited.