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<\/p>\nI’ve only seen two smoke morph Wild Turkeys ever. The first one was over thirty years ago. The second was yesterday.<\/p>\n
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Yesterday morning I finally got out again, this time into the mountains of the west desert. I didn’t find many birds but I did spend some time with a flock of Wild Turkeys. They were reluctant to come out into the open, spending most of their time in a stand of junipers so I didn’t get any great photos.<\/p>\n
It was a mixed flock of hens and several toms with most of them having typical coloration for Wild Turkeys, much like this tom who came out into the relative open for just a moment.<\/p>\n
But one of the hens really stood out.<\/p>\n
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She was a smoke morph (sometimes called smoke phase). Smoke morphs are a light wispy gray with graphite and black details along the body, wings, and tail. She was striking and beautiful, much more so than she appears in this mediocre photo.<\/p>\n
It’s a common fallacy that smoke morphs are Wild Turkey\/domestic turkey hybrids but that’s not the case. It’s a mutation that occurs occasionally in Wild Turkey populations and it’s expression is controlled by a single recessive gene.<\/p>\n
Since the gene is recessive a turkey must have two of them to be a smoke morph – those turkeys having only one of them are carriers for the trait and have normal coloration. Both parents must be carriers for any of their offspring to be smoke morphs. Since the gene isn’t very common in the population in the first place the chances of both parents being carriers are small and even when that happens only 25% of their offspring will be smoke morphs, on average.<\/p>\n
That previous paragraph just might bring back memories of your high school biology class…<\/em><\/p>\n Smoke morph turkeys may be less unusual than I thought. Audubon says that as many as 1% of Wild Turkeys may be smoke morphs.<\/p>\n But since this bird was only my second one she caught my attention and I thought viewers might like to see her.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Note: Smoke morph turkeys are not melanistic, leucistic or albino although all three are known to occur in turkey populations.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve only seen two smoke morph Wild Turkeys ever. The first one was over thirty years ago. The second was yesterday.<\/p>\n