different color turkey
Contributors to this thread:Turkey
From: montnatom
19-Apr-20
I shot a nice gobbler yesterday that was a bit different. First, when I got home and weighed the bird it was 23.6 pounds, which is heavier than any I've gotten in the past that I weighed. Also, the long wing feathers were white with just a bit of rust sprinkled in. Has anyone seen white winged merriams before and how prevalent is that? The tail was also a different rust color without the typical merriams white tips
From: Paul@thefort
19-Apr-20
Tom, never with that much white on wings, but how about a tom with no white on rump, tail or wings Usually a western Nebraska Rio/Merriams cross has white on tail and rump but this one had none. I checked with the SWA manager and he had only seen one like this in many years. Your tom and mine may have some domestic turkey traits or a recessive gene, etc. Great bird otherwise. Paul
From: Glunt@work
19-Apr-20
A friend shot a giant on a State Wildlife Area. Talk of the small town. Turns out the lady across the road from the SWA had a big wild looking domestic bird that wandered too far away from home investigating my friend's calls.
From: ChrisStone
19-Apr-20
Looks like a color phase bird.. more common then most think and wild.
From: Dale06
19-Apr-20
That’s a big one and very unique colors. Congrats.
From: JW
19-Apr-20
I took this all black bird a few years back. Fan, wings, even the tops of his feet were black. Cool looking bird!
From: nchunter
19-Apr-20
My buddy shot an eastern turkey in Virginia that had white wings and its tail alternated between white and brown. I thought it was a result of a domestic turkey mating with a wild turkey but research says this coloration happens naturally. On the same mountain 2 years ago I saw a solid white hen. Maybe this was her genetics in the flock.
From: Boris
19-Apr-20
I took a triple colored bearded turkey 2 yrs. ago. 10 1/2 inch beard.
From: t-roy
19-Apr-20
Crazy coloration on that bird, JW! Did you do a full body mount on him?
A friend of mine’s son shot a beautiful dusty grey, smokey colored tom that they had been after for 4 years. The beard was normal colored, but the rest of the bird was the unique coloration. Big, heavy bird with a 10” beard and 1 5/8ths inch spurs.
From: Timbrhuntr
19-Apr-20
JW that black melanistic color phase turkey is awesome and probably the rarest you will ever see let alone kill !
From: Beav
19-Apr-20
My daughter and I doubled on black ones a few years back.
From: Pop-r
19-Apr-20
Where'd y'all kill those at Beav?
From: JW
20-Apr-20
Troy, just ended up doing a fan mount with him, but probably should have done a full body.
From: The last savage
20-Apr-20
Man jw. That bird is beautiful...WOW
From: White Falcon
20-Apr-20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narragansett_turkey
From: darralld
20-Apr-20
One my son got several years ago.
From: loesshillsarcher
20-Apr-20
Cool turkeys!!
From: SBH
20-Apr-20
Those black birds are super cool!
From: Buck Watcher
20-Apr-20
We see "blonde" hens around here every year. A few years ago there was a white Tom a few miles from me. People seen it often. He even made the paper.
From: Timbrhuntr
20-Apr-20
Wow three black birds in one post unreal. Some lucky hunters here !
daralld nice mount . looks like one of the smoke phase types.
From: Beav
20-Apr-20
Killed them in Nebraska. There were three toms that were all black in one flock. I could never get them called in and tried two Springs. Then one day my buddy and I and my daughter called all three in by themselves and killed all three of them with the bow. Haven't seen one since.
From: Beav
20-Apr-20
Here is a pic of his tom.
From: Beav
20-Apr-20
I forgot one year coyote calling Marty's boy brought his bow in case we saw turkeys. We saw the flock and there was a black hen and he smoked her. Same spot that we killed the toms.
From: Beav
20-Apr-20
Better pic of my daughters bird.
From: Knife2sharp
20-Apr-20
Beav, what color were the legs? I shot a jake Merriam several years ago in MT that appeared rather dark. It wasn't completely melanistic really, because he still white barring on the wings, as well as all the other natural colors, but his legs and feet were powder blue, the same color as his head and neck, like the heads on the birds in the pic of you and your daughter.
From: Beav
20-Apr-20
The feet and legs were black.
From: Beav
21-Apr-20
This one is my favorite. This bird was killed a few years earlier about 10 miles from where we killed the other ones. We had hunted this bird for 3 years on public ground and couldn’t close the deal. But on this day it all came together. My buddy’s son was the only one who still had a tag so we went to check and see if this bird was around. It was the last week of the season and we had not saw him all year and figured he was dead. Low and behold there he was strutting on the hill with some hens and a Jake. We set up and immediately got a response. The Jake came charging in and knocked our decoy off the stake and stood on it and strutted. A minute later I see the black tom running in. He knocked the Jake off the decoy and then stood on the decoy himself and Jayden made a perfect shot! The black legend was dead!
From: Ermine
21-Apr-20
Wow Beav!! That’s super awesome. Crazy you got to be a part of that many black turkey kills!!
From: Elite 1
21-Apr-20
Those black ones are gorgeous I have a couple hens with different color phase.
From: t-roy
21-Apr-20
Those hens look similar to the nice tom that my friend’s son shot, Elite 1.
From: weekender21
21-Apr-20
We have a few white hens on our place in NC, never seen a black turkey. Those are really cool!
From: Elite 1
21-Apr-20
Not to throw this Thread off course but I’ve been home off work cause of the virus. Left my shop door open for a few days. And a hen decided to lay her eggs on top of my old Norge chest freezer I turned into a smoker up to 6 now she lays one egg a day. Only in there for about 45 minutes then gone. Kinda crazy.
From: t-roy
21-Apr-20
You should set up a trail cam on that, Elite. Pretty cool!
From: MichaelArnette
21-Apr-20
This is a very interesting thread
From: Glunt@work
22-Apr-20
Once she is done laying, you will have a guest for about 28 days all day and all night.
From: Elite 1
22-Apr-20
T-Roy I have a cam on video down there now it is pretty cool she definitely has a schedule. I will be going back to work soon and it will be impossible to leave my big door open that long. I have a buddy that’s going to incubate them when she’s done. I hate to do it to her.
From: Castle Oak
22-Apr-20
We have a "silver phase" in NC that originally was in just one county. During the restoration push in the 90's some of the silver phase birds were relocated to various areas around the state.
From: Elite 1
22-Apr-20
In 2018 I shot a snow white with a black bread.
From: darralld
22-Apr-20
Friend of mine shot a black one a long time ago. Wish we would have had it mounted.
From: TrapperKayak
22-Apr-20
Blackbeard's Ghost!!
From: DE Bow Hunter
23-Apr-20
Read this thread yesterday and saw this article today.
https://www.themeateater.com/hunt/wild-turkey/ultra-rare-color-phase-turkey-killed-in-oregon?utm_source=MeatEater+Subscribers&utm_campaign=0ed34cc3be-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_11_08_57_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e4b2ec63b4-0ed34cc3be-67657605&mc_cid=0ed34cc3be&mc_eid=dfe4543847
According to the National Wild Turkey Federation, melanism is a rare genetic pigment mutation that makes a wild turkey produce only black feathers, even their wings. Some researchers estimate that it’s present in 1 in 50,000 wild turkeys. It’s basically the opposite of albinism, which creates all white birds and is slightly rarer. “Erythristic,” or red-colored turkeys, are also very uncommon. “Smokey gray” birds, however, show up with more regularity. These four colors or “morphs” are not temporary “phases” as some hunter slang suggests, but rather are heritable, recessive genes that occur in pockets around the country. Dyches told Smith that a hunter had killed a melanistic jake in the same area last season.
