Turkey with young

[SomesBirder]

This turkey (which had 3-4 large chicks, but only two can be seen here) was photographed on the Coromandel peninsula less than a kilometre outside the town of Hahei in January. If anybody reading this has seen more than one turkey in another North Island area over the last decade, do tell. Gamebirds are some of my favourites.

[imogen]

In the last month I have twice seen 5-10 turkeys in a field on the left after the bridges on SH1 going south just outside of Foxton. Definitely going to remember to photograph them next time I am up there.

[fras444]

15 odd flock on Motutapu island, heaps throughout the BOP region

[ledzep]

Nearly always seen Turkey (once with young) on the road up to Boundary Stream at Napier. Also seen feral populations in the back rounds north of Turakina near Wanganui. There are quite a lot around.

[Mxyzptlk]

1. East Coast Road (Miranda-Kawakawa Bay) north of Matingarahi regularly.

2. Clevedon-Brookby-Whitford.

3. North of Taupo south of Whagamata Road. Lotsa familes.

4. Port Waikato. Common unless shot out.

5. Kaipara South Head and elsewhere throughout Northland. Regularly shot for food by locals.

Enough for you?

[Neil Fitzgerald]

Common as muck around Waitomo, often mixed with feral peacocks. Drive along Fullerton Rd and you have a good chance of seeing both.

[SomesBirder]

Thank you for all of this information. It seems that they are common in the central and northern North Island. I live in Wellington, so the closest wild turkeys I know of are near Foxton and possibly at Masterton. What are the requirements to add them to my life list? How can I be sure that these birds are wild? The photographed birds were not where I found them two hours later.

[Nikki McArthur]

Hi SomesBIrder,

Closer to home I have come across wild turkeys in the eastern Wairarapa, along one of the roads heading out towards the coast. I can't remember which one now, but I did post the sighting on New Zealand eBird (wwww.ebird.org/content/newzealand), so a quick search under the "view and explore" tab should bring it up. Turkeys were also recorded as present in a few eastern Wairarapa grid squares in the OSNZ atlas...

I'm not aware of anywhere else in the Wellington Region where feral turkeys can be seen. If gamebirds are your thing have you caught up with some of our local populations of California quail, ring-necked pheasants and peafowl? Quail are all over the place, but a particularly good place to see them is along the coast road to Pencarrow Head, south of Eastbourne. They're particularly common there during the summer, but seem to virtually disappear in winter. Pheasants are also locally common here & there, but are particularly conspicuous in the sand dunes at Queen Elizabeth Park on the Kapiti Coast.

It might be debatable whether you can tick peafowl in the Wellington Region - there are certainly feral birds in the Mangakotukutuku and Akatarawa Valleys, but I haven't seen any evidence of breeding - the birds I've seen may just have been escapees from free-ranging domestic "populations" such as that at Staglands in the Akatarawa Valley. We've even had two recent records of peafowl at relatively high altitudes in the Hutt Water Collection Area (southern end of the Tararua Ranges), one bird was seen on Maymorn Ridge (ca. 800m above sea-level in sub-alpine/wetland scrub; another was seen & shot on Renata Ridge; I presume both birds had dispersed from Staglands.

Cheers,
Nikki

[SomesBirder]

I am well aware of California quails exisiting at Pencarrow, though unfortunately since I began bird photography (early 2012) I have only been able to photograph one specimen (pictured). Due to the fact that Pencarrow is a popular cycling area during the weekend, my guess is that they are all scared off by 9 a.m. I have tried to find pheasants at Pencarrow, but I seriously doubt that they are present there. I have seen them around Waikanae, and I once photographed a pair of males on the edge of a field there, and last Saturday I saw a female walking on the roadside near here. Thank you for alerting me to feral peacocks in the area; I am intrigued. Fitter & Merton's 2011 guide indicated that they were living somewhere in the lower Wellington region. I do not think 'feral' chickens count as wild birds, but I once photographed an extremely alert male near Upper Hutt, and saw one female at Days Bay, Eastbourne. I saw a trio of them last Saturday at Waikanae, but they probably came from my Uncle's 'collection'.

Have you seen any truly wild guineafowl in the country? They are one of my huge gamebird interests for New Zealand, and grey partridge and bobwhite quail would be as well if they were not extinct here.

[Mxyzptlk]

"What are the requirements to add them to my life list?"

Have talked to bird photographers, ornithologists, twichers and many other natural scientists, in both NZ and overseas, during my time on this planet, I have happily concluded that my r&r pursuits are not conducted as a competition with others, unless I deem them to be. For that reason I and only I can set "the requirments" for what I may claim as a veritable hit. I am not interested in what others might demand for themsleves and I certainly don't let those others set the standards for me. Nor would I ever ask them to.

But that is just me.