Dear Joan: We have turkeys crossing the hill behind our house throughout the year, some times more than others, but virtually always in groups. Lately, however, we’ve had a solitary turkey hanging around, which struck us as unusual.
We wondered if it was a lone male, assuming that perhaps maturing young males are kicked out of the flock to form their own flocks, as with some other animal species. Well, we just found out our solitary bird is a female. We saw her with four very little chicks.
We assume she must have been nesting near us. Do female turkeys go off alone to nest and raise their chicks? Do they rejoin their original flock?
— Anna
Although turkeys are very social and prefer to live in flocks, when the hen is ready to start laying eggs, she becomes very secretive, scouting out nesting sites and not sharing the information.
