Birds of a Feather

If you find wild turkey body feathers on the ground, it’s a great scouting aid. And doubly so if you can tell if the the feathers are off a hen or a tom.

Especially when you are hunting a tom in the fall or late spring when the mating season has slowed down as most of the hens are staying on their nests to incubate eggs. Toms hang  with toms most of the year and have no interest in hens except during the spring mating season, so knowing if the dropped feathers are off a tom can tell you if you are in an area that toms frequent, like a dust bath site or a roosting site.

Tom body feathers can be identified by black tips or bars at the end of the feather as you can see in the picture below.

 

 

Hen body feathers have tan coloured tips below the black bars  as you can see in this photo.

Birds of a feather stick together in the world of the wild turkey, except during mating season, so identifying the feathers is a key scouting skill.