Does a Turkey Have Ears? An Overview of a Turkey’s Hearing Abilities

A “Bird-Brain” With Senses So Acute It Makes Them Seem Clever

Bob Humphrey | Originally published in GameKeepers: Farming for Wildlife Magazine. To subscribe, click here.

(photo by Tes Jolly) A wild turkey’s hearing is remarkable. It is not so much their ability to hear, but how they use it. They have an uncanny ability not only to hear sounds from great distances, but to pinpoint the exact location of their source. Their eyesight is possibly even more acute. With their head stationary they can see a field of view about 300 degrees and can likely see color many times better than humans.

How is it that a bird with a brain the size of a walnut still manages to defeat us more often than not?

I first struck the bird from a long way off. Several loud raps on a box call elicited an obliging gobble, and several more revealed he was indeed coming our way. We quickly settled in shoulder to shoulder against the base of a large live oak as I instructed my partner to aim his left shoulder towards the bird’s direction and prop his gun up on his knee.

The bird responded aggressively for some time before characteristically going quiet. While my accomplice grew increasingly restless, I strained eyes and ears for any trace of the turkey. He didn’t hear it, but I did: the deep, resonating boom of a strutting tom, and it was close. Then I spied the tips of a tail fan just over the rise in front of us. “Don’t move. Don’t even breathe,” I whispered emphatically.

As a guide, I’ve enjoyed the pleasure of sharing many first encounters between hunters and the undisputed “king of North American game birds.” Not all turned out as hoped, but that’s part of the game. And among the many lessons I’ve learned is that you cannot impress upon a novice hunter enough just how keen the wild turkey’s senses are. They seldom march obligingly in, and if you wait until they’re close at hand to prepare for the shot, it’s probably too late. Move now and you’ll be left with little more than a lesson on what not to do.

“IT’S ABOUT CREATING A LEGACY FOR ALL FUTURE GENERATIONS. SUBSCRIBE TODAY!”

It is often said of turkeys, “If they could smell you, you’d never kill them.” Maybe so, but the senses they do posses are among the keenest in nature, honed by eons of natural selection to ensure survival of the species. Even novice hunters occasionally encounter a “foolish” bird that makes them feel like a hero. However, if you want to be more consistently successful, you’ve got to study your quarry and not only learn their weaknesses, but their strengths, and develop ways to overcome both. The best learned lessons often come only with experience and frequently failure. Fortunately, those long, scaly legs do have a few “Achilles’ heels.”

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

(photo by Bob Humphrey) Being well-camouflaged, having patience, and learning/knowing a turkey’s natural patterns and instincts are possibly the most important strong suits a hunter can possess. A good camo will not only blend you into your environment it will also help to break-up your human form. It’s also helpful to have a background the break up or conceal your silhouette.

One of my more important lessons came while trolling down a power-line right-of-way one morning. It was one of my regular haunts and I knew the woods on either side often held birds, but they seemed to have developed a sudden case of lockjaw. So I opted for a run-and-gun approach, hiking down the swath and pausing at strategic locations to try and strike a bird with my box call. Still, my efforts were proving largely ineffective.

As I neared the top of a rise I paused once more, unlimbered my favorite “boat paddle” and was about to send a volley of loud yelps when I glanced down my back-trail. It was a good quarter mile back that I noticed what at first looked like a contractor’s trash bag blowing in the breeze. A quick check with binoculars showed it was Old Tom, in full strut, right where I had stopped to call some 30 minutes earlier.

Though there’s not a lot of science to quantify it, we know wild turkeys have very keen hearing. It is not so much their ability to hear, but how they use it that is most remarkable. As the previous passage points out, they have an uncanny ability not only to hear sounds, but to pinpoint the exact location of their source. I’d witnessed it before, but that day on the power-line confirmed what I subsequently observed many more times over the years; and I can aver with certainty that once a bird hears your calling, they will find your precise location, if they’re inclined to.

“IF YOU LOVE WILDLIFE AND WANT TO IMPROVE HABITAT SUBSCRIBE TODAY!”

Here, as in most turkey hunting situations, patience is the key. Most hunters nowadays, myself included, prefer a run-and-gun style of hunting. “If it’s not happening here, I’ll go some-where else and make it happen.” And it works, sometimes.

(photo by Tes Jolly) Just because you don’t hear him, doesn’t mean he doesn’t hear you. He may be coming to you silently – this is when patience pays off. Far too many times a hunter will leave a set-up, only to return after a while to find a “strutter” fanned-out right where they were set up. Turkeys typically aren’t in a hurry.

Just as often you might be better off going “old school.” Just because you don’t hear them, doesn’t mean they’re not there and that they won’t respond, even in silence. If you scouted sufficiently, you know they should be there somewhere. Sit down, yelp three times on a box call and wait a half hour, or more. Then repeat. It may not have quite the excitement of a gobbling, strutting bird marching boldly into your decoy, but if the bird does eventually slip silently into range, he’ll be just a dead.

In addition to locating the source, wild turkeys also have mastered the art of interpreting those sounds, as evidenced by their complex vocabulary. What to us sounds like little more than turkey noise represents a diverse range of messages.

Yelps, clucks and purrs all convey different messages, which can also vary with tone and inflection. Space precludes us from getting into too much detail as entire articles and even books have been written on the subject of turkey calling. Suffice to say, you’ve got to learn to speak fluent turkey by observing and listening if you want to exploit it. And that’s not even their keenest sense.

(photo by Tes Jolly) Little research has been done specifically on a wild turkey’s eyesight, but birds, in general, have the most complex retina of any vertebrae. One of a gobbler’s single cone photoreceptors has a spectral sensitivity to wavelengths near 400nm, which is in the ultraviolet light range.

The wild turkey’s sense of vision is legendary, as anyone who has made even the slightest movement at the wrong moment can attest. Beginning with the basics, their stationary field of vision encompasses 300 degrees, which can expand to a full 360 degrees with a slight turn of the head. So you’re not going to sneak up behind them. And while they lack the binocular vision afforded by forward facing eyes like those of predators, head movement also allows them better spatial recognition.

Surprisingly, far less research has been done on the eyesight of turkeys com-pared to that of deer. We do know that they see color, as evidenced by how they respond to changes in color of the head and neck appendages, not to mention our occasional lapses in concealing our-selves and our equipment. According to a Scientific American article, the turkey’s retina has seven different types of photoreceptors. Unlike deer, which are crepuscular, turkeys are diurnal, meaning they’re most active during daylight. They only have one rod, which is sensitive to light and helps them see in low light, probably about as well as we do. However, they have six different types of cones, two of which are actually “double cones,” compared to only four for humans. While I could find no corroborating evidence, the article also states that one of those cones has a spectral sensitivity in the UVA light range. At the very least, that makes blue and purple very bad colors to wear while turkey hunting. It’s also advisable that you not use standard household detergents with fabric brighteners to wash your hunting clothes; and you should check them with a UV light to see if they glow.

It is not so much magnification, but the rate at which they can assimilate detail and detect movement that largely accounts for their visual acuity. These attributes have been honed over eons of avoiding predators, and because turkeys spend most of their time on the ground, those senses are even more finely tuned than in other birds.

Your first, best defense in overcoming them is good camo. That’s why patterns like Mossy Oak Obsession were designed to both, break up the human outline and blend in with the environment of spring woodlands. That means camo from head to toe, and specific attention to detail. Shiny brass grommets on leather boots or the sun glinting off a polished blued shotgun barrel could be more than enough to reveal your presence.

“BECOMING A GAMEKEEPER IS NOT JUST THE BEST WAY TO PRODUCE GREAT HUNTING… IT’S THE BEST LIFE! SUBSCRIBE TODAY.”

And you’ve got to remain as motionless as possible. If you can see them, they can see you. Often, even when you can’t, they can. Unlike humans, turkeys have no sense of urgency, and if they detect the slightest hint of danger, they will remain motionless for what can sometimes seem like an agonizingly long time. Don’t sneeze, don’t swat that mosquito, and don’t shift your weight. Even the heavy breathing and nervous shaking of an excited hunter could be enough to give you away.

The more you know about a turkey’s senses, the better your chances of “neutralizing” them. If you have to make a last minute adjustment on a strutting tom, wait until his vision is blocked by his fan or his head goes behind a tree or other obstruction. Otherwise, move SLOWLY.

Sometimes you have no choice. While it’s probably more mere coincidence than any real deliberate attempt, turkeys also have an uncanny knack for coming in on the wrong side – the right side if you’re a right-handed shooter, and vice versa. You’ll never beat them on the draw, so a quick move into a better shooting position will almost always fail, resulting in no shot, a miss or worse, a wounded bird. If you must move, move slowly. The bird will still pick you out, but if you’re lucky, they may hesitate while trying to make sense of what they’re seeing. If you need to move and they’re in the open, move while they’re moving.

You stop when they stop. Then, wait for them to move again before continuing. Even better, if you get the chance, wait for them to pass behind a tree or until a strutting fan obscures their view.

5 FACTS | Wild Turkey (True Facts)

FAQ

Where are turkey ears located?

“Because the eyes are on the sides of their heads, turkeys have an almost 360 degree field of view around them.” “The ears are behind and slightly below their eyes,” Chamberlain said.

Do turkeys have external ears?

Turkeys have great hearing, but no external ears.

Can a turkey feel pain?

All poultry species are sentient vertebrates and all the available evidence shows that they have a very similar range of feelings as mammalian species. Poultry can suffer by feeling pain, fear, and stress.” More information about the lives of turkeys can be found here.

How far can wild turkeys hear?

The gobble of a wild turkey can be heard up to a mile away.

Do turkeys have ears?

“The ears are behind and slightly below their eyes,” Chamberlain said. “Turkeys have no external ear like we do, but their ears register volume of sounds separately and transmit that information to the brain. That allows turkeys the uncanny ability to determine distance to a sound and then go to that exact spot where they heard the sound.”

Do turkeys have ear lobes?

What that means is that they probably can hear tones that are too low or high for us to hear. Unlike us humans, turkeys do not have ear lobes (called pinnae) to gather in the sounds. The purpose of an earlobe is to help gather the sound in so it is easier to hear. If you have a dog, watch them as they adjust their ears to hear sounds.

Do wild turkeys hear a lot?

Dickson’s compilation of wild turkey experts reveals that a wild turkey’s hearing is acute, although its external ear lacks a flap, or pinna, which concentrates sound waves. Field observations suggests turkeys hear lower-frequency and more distant sounds than humans. “Touch comes into play primarily for feeding,” Eriksen said.

What makes a wild turkey unique?

The wild turkey’s various features are as visually appealing as they are peculiar, from its dangling snood to its iridescent feathers. These features are interesting to observe and help make wild turkeys the well-adapted survivalists and masters of elusion that we love.

What does a turkey’s head look like?

A turkey’s head is sort of like a mood ring. A turkey’s head is incredibly unique, and as we just learned, it includes a snood, a wattle, and caruncles. Interestingly, these features change color based on excitement, fear, or aggression level.

How does a wild turkey respond to a sound?

Wild turkeys have an uncanny ability to locate the source of a sound. When they identify a noise, their immediate response is to look in the direction of the sound, allowing them to react quickly to predators or other environmental factors.” Outstanding hearing is an asset to all prey species.