Turkey Calling - Real or Unreal

BirdNote^®

Turkey-calling

Written by Ellen Blackstone

This is BirdNote!

And today on BirdNote, we have a couple of past national turkey-calling champions. [Turkey gobble]

Preston Pittman won his first turkey-calling contest when he was only 16, (pause) and he makes these sounds with his mouth. [Preston gobble] Here’s a real male turkey. [Turkey gobble] And here’s Preston. [Preston gobble] Now, see if you can tell which is which. [Turkey gobble] (pause) [Preston gobble]

You want to be careful how you use this skill. Here’s what Preston said on the David Letterman show:

     “I’ve been fortunate enough to live through two hunting accidents; I’ve been shot twice."
     [David Letterman:] "So authentic is your gobbling, that somebody has shot you?"

Now, here’s Alabama's Sadler McGraw.  He uses the “friction” technique - you basically pull a “striker”  – almost like a screwdriver – across a crystal surface that's about the size of a saucer. It sounds for all the world like a turkey, and it won him the world championship in 2009. Here’s Sadler imitating the turkey’s “cluck-and-purr” sounds. [#2] And here’s the real thing. [#3 MacL 2375]

Now, this is the “kee-kee” sound that a young tom turkey makes. [#4] And here’s Sadler McGraw’s version. [#5] Can you tell which is which? [#4 Kee-Kee call] [#5 Sadler’s call]

Visit our website, BirdNote.org, to see some hilarious videos of turkey-calling. No foolin’.

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Sounds of Wild Turkey provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Gobble [129251] recorded by G.F. Budney. Cluck and purr sounds [2375] recorded by D.F. Shreeve. “Kee-kee” call recorded by G.A. Keller.

Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Dominic Black
© 2015 Tune In to Nature.org     April 2017/2019    Narrator: Michael Stein

ID# turkeycall-01-2011-04-01  turkeycall-01