Welcome Turkey Observers!
New Hampshire Fish and Game's spring/summer turkey brood survey is open and welcomes your New Hampshire turkey brood sightings. (What's a brood? See our turkey watching guidelines below.) The survey runs annually from May 15 through August 31. When the survey is open, click on the link in the box below to report your observations. Thanks for your interest in New Hampshire's wildlife!
Click here to report your NH turkey brood sightings. |
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Wild Turkey Brood Survey Summaries: |
Let's Talk Turkey! A hen turkey is an adult (1 or more years old) female turkey. A clutch is a collection of eggs in a nest. A brood is a collection of young turkeys from the same nest. A newly hatched turkey is referred to as a chick. When a chick begins to develop flight feathers, it is referred to as a poult. A mixed flock of turkeys is a flock consisting of multiple hens and/or broods. A mixed flock often includes broods of different ages. For example, a hen with a 4-week-old brood might form a bond with a hen that has an 8-week-old brood. The 8-week-old brood would consist of poults that are much larger than the 4-week-old poults in their flock. A hen without a brood (lost to predators) may join the mixed flock as a foster mother as well. Mixed flocks typically form in July. |
The annual turkey brood survey runs from May 15 to August 31 each year. The public is invited to report sightings of New Hampshire flocks that include hens with young turkeys. This effort helps biologists estimate how many young turkeys survive into adulthood in a particular year.
- Click here for information about the winter flock survey, which takes place from January 1 - March 31.
Turkey Watching Guidelines
Is this your first time visiting this site? Please take a moment to review the guidelines below.
- Date of sighting is required. Only report sightings made in New Hampshire from May 15 through August 31.
- Do not report sightings of adult male turkeys.
- Tell us the relative size of poults when you observed them. Size is important, because it allows Fish and Game to approximate the hatching date of respective broods. For example, if you report a hen with “robin sized” poults on July 1, we can estimate that the brood hatched on or about June 15, since poults that size are about two weeks old. The following list provides you with a guide to describing the size and age of chicks/poults you may observe during the summer months:
| Sparrow size = chicks | Pigeon size = 4-week-olds |
| Robin size = 2-week-olds | Grouse size = 6-week-olds |
| Quail size = 3-week-olds | Pheasant size = 8-week-olds |
- When reporting mixed flocks, we ask that you tally the number of hens present, and the number and relative size of poults observed. For example, you might report a flock of 3 hens and 15 poults, divided amongst robin and grouse sized poults. On the survey, report how many hens, “robin sized” and “grouse sized” poults were in the flock.
- List the town of your sighting and use the reference map to identify the Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) where the sighting occurred. Note that WMUs are depicted by a capital letter and that some WMUs have both a letter and a number in their label, for example A, B, D1, D2, E, etc.
Summary of Things to Report:
- Date flock seen,
- WMU,
- Number of hens,
- Number and size class of poults – which may be divided amongst multiple age classes.
Good luck and thanks for participating!
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