Wild Turkey Surprise!

A few summers back the family took a trip to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. We had been hiking along the Appalachian Trail in the midst of scrub and tall grass, the children running up ahead. Suddenly there was a flurry of brown feathers and a huge bird rose into the air. In an instant it was gone, hidden again in the brush. It was my first sighting of a wild turkey. Later as we drove along the Blue Ridge Parkway, we saw two more, possibly a hen and a tom, scuffling in the underbrush along the road. Their feathers a mottled brown, the birds looked somewhat like giant pheasants and not at all like the domesticated turkeys that grace the Thanksgiving dinner table. We stopped and watched from the car while they pecked around at the ground near the top of a small hillock. The click of the camera shutter must have spooked them because they suddenly fled over the rise and were gone.

The wild turkey is indigenous to both North and Central America, where it was domesticated by the Mayans. Early European explorers to America incorrectly identified the turkey with the African Helmeted Guineafowl, also known as the turkey-cock for its importation to Central Europe through Turkey, hence the name. (Read the article on Wikipedia.)

The wild turkey -- pavo in Castilian Spanish -- is one of the native birds featured on the beautifully drawn 3-stamp commemorative from Bolivia shown above. (Click the post title to order.) County Stamp Center offers stamps for every interest at excellent prices. Visit our website to see what's new and check out our specials. Visit County Stamp Center for all your philatelic needs.