Wild turkey chase around Murrysville tree may look crazy, but it’s normal, expert says

At first glance, the three wild turkeys chasing one another around a tree in Murrysville look crazy, but what seems like silly play is really a struggle for dominance, according to a state turkey expert.

PixCams captured the clip on a webcam trained on a field in Murrysville earlier this month of three males turkeys chasing each other in circles around a tree. Within the first few days after the clip was edited and posted on social media by PixCams, it reached several thousand viewers quickly.

“We have not seen anything like this before,” said Bill Powers of PixCams, a Murrysville organization that developed and streams outdoor nature webcams throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania, including the Pittsburgh Hays bald eagle webcam.

“This is a group of three mature males (toms) and it looks like they are chasing each other for some reason,” said Powers of the comical video.

While the video is funny to the average person, said Mary Jo Casalena, wild turkey biologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, the clip actually show three typical adult gobblers, one of which is establishing dominance over the others.

The birds continually running around a tree, demonstrates that “turkeys aren’t the smartest animals,” Casalena said. The first turkey that stepped out of the circle chase is likely the subordinate one, she noted.

“Then the dominant gobbler began the dominance game again,” Casalena said. “The other two gobblers play along with it because dominance is a normal part of flock behavior.”

The birds aren’t trying to hurt each other but they’re not playing, either, Casalena said.

This jockeying and having a clearly defined dominant bird will helps the flock join other flocks, which turkeys do in the fall and the winter, Casalena aid.

The birds flock together for protection from predators — safety in numbers — and to more easily find food.

“They have more eyes venturing through the woods where they can spread out and find food, and have more eyes watching out for predators.”

Turkeys highest survival rates in the state occurs in winter, she noted.