Thanks Giving

Last year I got all heavy with my hopefully-to-be-annual Thanksgiving greeting.

But this year, partly because I have so much for which to be thankful and partly because being thankful this year has proven to be a special challenge at times, I figure I'll be a little lighter. Y'know what I'm thankful for? Turkeys.

Did you know Ben Franklin, my favorite founding father, wanted the eastern wild turkey to be our national symbol? But by the late 19th century the species, Meleagris gallopavo, was hunted so thoroughly and had its habitat destroyed so completely that it almost went extinct. After four failed attempts, largely due to the efforts of early hunting organizations - long the only conservation organizations in the country - by 1970, the species began seriously rebounding and today is one of the best success stories of reintroducing native species to wide swaths of eastern habitat.

The wild turkey is slightly different from the domesticated one (a subspecies), which is descended from smaller stock raised for centuries by Aztec and Maya farmers (and Olmec before them) and then spread across North America via adoption by European settlers. They are gallinaceous (chicken-like) and related to pheasants, grouse, and peacocks.

Turkeys are generalists, and their success and reintroduction has much to do with that flexibility in diet. They eat insects, leaves, grasses, and seeds out of the most marginal habitats. They are big birds, averaging 17 pounds, but can fly up to 55 mph in short bursts and escape predators that way more often than not, although they spend most of the day walking.

A group of turkeys is known as a rafter and the young are called poults. Mating rituals are elaborate and musical. Prancing and fluffing feathers enhance the peculiar calls of both the Toms and Hens.

Snoods, wattles, dewlaps, and caruncles are the folds of blood-engorged skin that hang from the head or neck of the gobbler (another name for tom) in some red, blue, or purple hue and they're adapted to catch the eye of a hormonally heightened hen at breeding time in the Spring. The toms don't take part in childrearing. Hens lay an egg a day for up to 2 weeks then incubate the clutch for about a month. The poults can fly within 3 weeks after hatching.

They are a favorite of hunters, with a bit of a cult following, so-to-speak. Turkey season is generally in October and November (surprise!) but varies by region.

So there's something for which ol' Froz is thankful: a native species that went into decline and has now rebounded because of the actions of those who like to hunt and eat them. I'm thankful for a wild species that had one particularly extinction-avoiding trait: they go well with Zin blends. Yum.

Happy Thanksgiving!