Illumination in the Flatwoods (1 of 2 free samples)

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COPYRIGHT
Illumination in the Flatwoods by Joe Hutto. Copyright 1995 by Joe Hutto
All Rights Reserved. Sharing not permitted.

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Illumination in the Flatwoods: A season with the wild turkey
by Joe Hutto

INTRODUCTION

The wild turkey has the distinction of being the only species in North America identified by name as wild. Perhaps, in part, the name serves to appropriately distinguish the wild from the domestic variety, but surely it also denotes the wild turkey's most conspicuous characteristic--that it is profoundly inconspicuous. Frequently, I encounter people who have never observed a wild turkey even though they live in an area where these birds are considered to be abundant. Only in recent years, with the development of portable radio-telemetry technology, has wild turkey behavior begun to come to light. These studies are, of course, limited in their scope and provide only broad overviews of behavior--as revealing as the use of aerial photography would be to observe human behavior. We could identify traffic and road systems, settlement patterns, and places of specific activity, but we would observe little of the day-to-day, minute-to-minute nuances of individual behavior and personality.
Having remained intrigued with these birds and a little frustrated with their elusiveness for much of my lifetime, I chose to use the mechanism of "imprinting" as a possible window into the secret life of the wild turkey.

Imprinting is the phenomenon that serves the newborn of most socially organized animals in immediately identifying his parent and to some degree his species. In certain highly socialized species of birds, called "precocial," that are born alert and fully ambulatory, such as ducks, geese, swans, and all gallinaceous birds, including pheasants, quail, partridge, grouse, chickens, and turkeys, imprinting occurs rapidly at birth and in most cases is unalterable.

Although I have had various experiences with imprinting as a tool to gain entry into the lives of many different species, and even though all that I do predisposes me for such activities, what is contained in the following account was completely unforeseen. Had I known what was in store--the difficult nature of the study and the time I was about to invest--I would have been hard pressed to justify such an intense involvement. But, fortunately, I naively allowed myself to blunder into a two-year commitment that was at once exhausting, often overwhelming, enlightening, and one of the most inspiring and satisfying experiences of my life.

I have scratched through Pleistocene bone beds tens of thousands of years old, and lifted out the fossil bones of wild turkeys that once shared a very different landscape with a multitude of strange creatures that did not endure.

I have analyzed skeletal remains of wild turkeys deposited in caves by native American hunters in the desert Southwest and wondered how our lives could be so intertwined for so many thousands of years and yet they remain complete strangers to us.

Examining every bone, identifying each articular surface, separating every muscle group, counting seeds, berries, insect parts, and broken glass contained in crops and stomachs, I wandered through the labyrinthine anatomy and physiology of dead wild turkeys and yet I knew nothing--they remained mysterious.

In archives and libraries I pored over monographs, research papers, and books, but still I knew more about the contents of wild turkey stomachs and the parasitic inhabitants of their intestines than about their behavior--their nature.

For hundreds of hours I sat concealed in camouflaged blinds, fogging my binoculars, listening to the soft whir of audio-and videotape, and alternately releasing the shutter and rewinding my still camera. But wild turkeys are not sedentary creatures, and I was rarely permitted to observe one for more than five minutes--more often our encounters could be measured in seconds.

As a wildlife artist I have attempted to render them, calling on my experience, my research, and my many videotapes and photographs to help me portray the nobility in their eyes and posture, but was I able to express anything that is the truth about the wild turkey? I was never sure.

In this study and through my unusual relationship with these birds, I was allowed passage into their world and their experience. They provided a conduit of sorts, but one that would allow only the most buoyant elements of my being to cross over. A fragile bridge that would support neither a scientist nor an artist. Not camera, pen, or the smallest slip of paper was allowed passage. And so, eventually, leaving these things scattered behind me, I found myself at times experiencing a very different reality and the gift of glimpsing, if only momentarily, the world through another's eyes.

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