- 1). Look for the large size and banded pattern of the turkey's major wing feathers. Both primaries and secondaries---the outer and inner feathers, respectively, of an outstretched wing's underside---are elongate and barred dirty-white and brown or gray. A female wild turkey from Wyoming, cataloged in the U.S. National Fish and Wildlife Forensic Laboratory's Feather Atlas, had primary wing feathers between about 30 and 40 cm, and secondaries between 20 and about 27 cm . A Pennsylvania male's primaries---from the same collection---were similarly proportioned, while its secondaries were slightly longer, the largest spanning over 30 cm. Measure the feather you find. Primaries are typically narrower and---for the largest ones---longer than secondaries.
- 2). Identify the turkey's large, usually brownish tailfeathers by their more muted barring and black band at the tip. An adult male turkey from Pennsylvania in the Feather Atlas had tailfeathers between about 32 and 41 cm. The color of the barring depends on subspecies. Male turkeys fan their tailfeathers as a breeding display. According to the National Wild Turkey Federation, you can often distinguish displaying adult males from juvenile males by the apparent length of their posterior feathers: Those of adult males usually appear the same length, while the center tailfeathers on juveniles look longer than the others. For birds in general, you can usually distinguish a feather from the tail from one in the wing by viewing it from the side: The quill of the tailfeather is typically bent near its base.
- 3). Keep in mind that, as in most animals, color variation exists among wild turkeys at the individual and subspecies levels. Most wild turkeys are brownish, though a breeding male often appears iridescent. The National Wild Turkey Federation reports a few less common hues: "a smok(y) gray color phase, a melanistic color phase [all black], an erythritic color phase [reddish coloration] and an albino color phase [very rare]."
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