COURT HOUSE – Turkey and Thanksgiving Day are synonymous for most Americans.
The turkey, as center of attraction on the feast table, won’t look much like the ones that are frequently seen throughout Cape May County, as wild turkey rafters (that’s the term for a group of turkeys) increase.
The photographs that illustrate this story were taken in late May in Court House. At that time of year, male “gobblers” are in the breeding mood as they oversee their females, who return the male’s calls with high-pitched yelps. It is common to see or hear them in nearby woods, on lawns and in streets.
The following is from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Fish and Wildlife website:
The gobble of the male turkey, though often associated with Thanksgiving, is more of a spring phenomenon. Tom turkeys may gobble at any time of year, and often do so in response to a loud noise. It is in the spring, however, that gobbling begins in earnest.
Gobblers sound off to stake out a territory. The sound warns other males that the hens of a given area belong to the gobbling tom. More importantly, hens are attracted by the sound so that the business of breeding can be attended to.
Hens cannot gobble, but do have a repertoire of calls all their own. They communicate with each other through a series of yelps, whines, purrs, and whistles.
To let a gobbler know where she is, a hen will call to him in yelps. When she is really serious about mating, she emits a series of fast, high-pitched yelps called a cackle. The tom answers by gobbling and moving toward her. He fans his tail, puffs himself up and drags his wings in full strut. This display impresses the hen and puts her “in the mood” for breeding.
Gobblers are polygamous and collect a harem of hens. Interested in hens only for breeding, they do not take part in the rearing of young. Because one tom can easily inseminate seven or more hens, there are always surplus toms in the turkey population. These gobblers may be harvested without endangering the reproductive success in a given year.
The spring hunting season is timed carefully to coincide with the period when the hens are incubating. At this time, the gobblers are “excess baggage,” having completed their portion of the reproductive process. They are, however, still interested in mating and will respond to a hen, or a person’s imitation of a hen.
Some turkey hunters call using their own voices. In New Jersey, a call must be in one’s possession. Most hunters use a handmade or commercial calling device. To be legal, such a caller must be manually operated; no electronic calls are legal.
Turkey calls come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some are hand operated, using a lever or striker on a wood, slate or aluminum surface; friction between the surface and the striker produces the sound. Beginners would be wise to start with a box call. More hunters are successful with box calls than any other call. Other calls utilize air blown from the mouth or pulled into the call by mouth. The beginner should try a number of calls to determine which can be mastered.
Once a type of turkey call is selected, practice is the key to success. Many audio and video tapes, as well as CD-ROMs, featuring champion callers are available, and learning from these is almost as good-as rubbing elbows with a knowledgeable caller.
For more on turkey hunting visit: www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/trktips.htm
West Cape May – The amount of TV shows airing is getting out of hand. Less movies are being produced today than ever before. Instead, people are glued to watching shows that most people never heard of.
