Merriam's color variations

[Rapscallion Vermilion]

Sasquatch has posted these before, so it would be a cheat for me to say.  But it is a very typical example from that area.

[sasquatch1]

Sasquatch has posted these before, so it would be a cheat for me to say.  But it is a very typical example from that area.

SHHHHHHHH lol

[hookedspur]

Sure are beautiful birds .Thanks

[hobbes]

OK sasquatch I'll change my answer to New Mexico Merriam' s.   .  He's a great looking tom and gives more proof that Merriam's are not all snow white.

I assumed you were trying to throw something unexpected into the mix. 

Great photos treerooster.

[MDbowman]

My one and only Merriam's.  Came in with a white-tipped bird. The whiter one hung up behind a pine at 40 yds, this one came in to 25. I had told myself as they were coming in I was taking the first shot at an adult bird. 45 min west of Pueblo, CO on National Forest.  Someone mentioned snow. This bird was killed in mid-May. I had an afternoon and a full day to hunt. It had snowed the morning of the afternoon hunt. I shot this bird the next morning. He is a little beat up, he flopped a couple hundred yards down the mountainside. And yes I had to climb back up!

[RutnNStrutn]

Here's my NW Nebraska Merriams. He looks white to me. A couple of the birds that other guys took on the same hunt on the same ranch were more buff than white.

[RutnNStrutn]

You will notice 2 short beards with the spurs right above them. Those are the spurs from the tom with that particular beard. They weren't jakes although the beard looks like its from one.

On the ranch that I hunted in NW Nebraska, the rancher warned us to not assume short beards meant jakes. He said in the winter, his gobblers get ice balls on their beards from dragging them in the snow while feeding. He said they often break off, leaving short, jake like beards. Sure enough, we saw several short bearded toms with full fans on that trip.

[hobbes]

Great looking birds MD and Rutn.   

[jblackburn]

Great post!  I'll add a couple pics.  The first 2 are Merriam per NWTF, although my guess is that there is some hybridizing going on.

Idaho



Washington - Just south of Spokane



For kicks, here is another WA bird, from SE Washington.  Per NWTF it is a Rio, and I think they are right.

[Hooksfan]

Very interesting post. I have always been interested in the different color variations and subspecies. I have hunted and killed birds in the Merriam regions of NW Nebraska and South Dakota. Last year I hunted in North Central Kansas close to the Nebraska border. While scouting the place out, I ran into an outfitter who claimed his clients shot both Merriam and Rios in the area. I was pretty skeptical, and remain so ,but two of the four birds we shot had colorations that were as white as my south dakota birds. They did still have the coppery coloration of the Rios and I still maintain they were Rios or maybe even hybrids and that the outfitter was just using the light coloration to call them Merriams to attract unsuspecting or less informed clients. No way there are pure strain merriams and rios walking in wild flocks on the same parcel of land.

[GobbleNut]

Very interesting post. I have always been interested in the different color variations and subspecies. I have hunted and killed birds in the Merriam regions of NW Nebraska and South Dakota. Last year I hunted in North Central Kansas close to the Nebraska border. While scouting the place out, I ran into an outfitter who claimed his clients shot both Merriam and Rios in the area. I was pretty skeptical, and remain so ,but two of the four birds we shot had colorations that were as white as my south dakota birds. They did still have the coppery coloration of the Rios and I still maintain they were Rios or maybe even hybrids and that the outfitter was just using the light coloration to call them Merriams to attract unsuspecting or less informed clients. No way there are pure strain merriams and rios walking in wild flocks on the same parcel of land.

You are correct.  Unless the birds are new transplants into an area, any mixture of subspecies will be hybridized within a few generations/years.  Because of that tell-tale "coppery coloration", Rio's are probably the easiest to tell when they hybridize.  If you have birds that exhibit any of that coppery sheen, especially in the iridescent areas of their rump feathers, they are Rio's or Rio hybrids.  True Merriams turkeys have none of that coppery iridescence.