How Spring Turkeys GOBBLE! Wild Turkey Anatomy

Hi, I'm Chris with Afflictor Broadheads, and today we are going to dissect a turkey and show you how they make vocalizations. So when we talk about turkey vocalizations, we know that they don't have a massive wide range. In fact, if you think of birds in general, each bird is very distinctive to its vocalization. It is really easy to hear a Carolina wren, for example, or a robin, and know immediately what you're listening to, even though you haven't heard that. And of course, turkeys fall into that same bracket, right? So if we hear a gobble, we know that it definitely wasn't a sparrow. And of course, the yelps of the hen are very distinct. And even though there's a range of vocalizations there, across the board, turkeys are very similar. Tones, pitches, things like that have a wide spectrum. But when you look at cadence and the type of vocalizations, it's pretty standard across the board for all turkeys. But how do they do it? One of the misconceptions is, when we did the cut down and the video talking about the tongue and the mouth, when we look at this here, and we see this glottis that allows air to be controlled, if you will, through the trachea in the bird's mouth, we look at the pharynx there, that has very little to do, actually nothing, to do with producing sound, only airflow. All of birds' vocalizations take place down here in their chest, and right behind the heart, actually, in between the lungs, just above the lungs, right between them, is a little voice box. On birds, it's called the syrinx, and that's where everything comes from. So today I'm gonna talk about the syrinx, where it's at, what it looks like, and what it does, and it might help you understand a little bit about turkey vocalization. So as we look at this cut down here of this turkey, and we follow our trachea, so our trachea, we have the glottal opening here in the tongue, it goes all the way down the bird, it sits in front of, or posterior to, the esophagus, where all the food goes, so the trachea is in front, that trachea goes all the way down, nonstop, and ends up at a little spot called the syrinx, and at the syrinx, that's where the vocal cords are, and that is actually where the left and right bronchi separate to go into the turkey's lungs. And we have the turkey heart, a good edible on the turkey, and we expose the syrinx. So as we look at this trachea coming down, if you imagine it coming down, and then there's a Y, and at that Y, you have the trachea breaking off, going to the left lung and the right lung, and in the very middle, where that bifurcation is, that's where the syrinx is located, and that is where everything happens. That is where the gobbling sound comes from, that's where yelps, clucks, everything comes from there. Now, they can control the air from that up front, but as far as the actual sound, this is where it's made. And so, if we want to look at it, we'll go ahead and remove it here. So, as we look at this trachea, these two are the muscles here, sternoclaviculus muscles, I think is what they're called. Please don't quote me on that, but it'll be a fun thing for you to look up. This is what anchors this trachea inside here. Trachea comes down from the mouth, right here, and this is the bifurcation. So this comes on both sides, these tubes will go down to the lungs, and right here is the syrinx. This right here is what produces all the sound. Now, what's amazing about the gobbler's syrinx is, they can utilize all of the air from their lungs through the syrinx to make a vocalization. That's why gobbling is so loud. They've got all that air in there, they can really push it through, so they can use 100% of their air. For us to speak, we use roughly 2% of the air in our lungs to talk. So if you want to see the difference there, it's a good comparison. All those vocalizations are coming from here, so a lot of people like to think that that's all coming from the mouth, it's not, it's just coming out of the mouth. And if you want to put it in another perspective, when you see a turkey gobble, he has to put his whole life into that gobble, right? He's loading up, he's puffed out, he's really pushing everything back, he's sticking his neck way out, and that's so he's utilizing all his air, getting all his volume, getting that gobble going, and getting it out there so it's heard from a long distance. And so that is the benefit of the syrinx. Now, turkeys and geese, they're big-bodied birds, they have big lungs, they have large syrinxes. When you talk about birds that make noise, like a song sparrow or something like that, their syrinxes are teeny tiny. Some of them are smaller than a drop of water. So the bigger the bird often, the larger the vocalization. That doesn't mean that they sound pretty. I mean, let's face it, swans don't exactly have a song, but when they do say something, it's pretty loud. Same for the turkeys. So it's a good consideration here to be able to understand that that is all coming from down deep in the chest. Now, as this bifurcates into the lungs, it's important to know where it's located. So when you look at this coming down and you see that this cavity here is sitting much higher in the body than you would think, you gotta get a good idea of where those lungs are in position and the heart is in position if you are an archery hunter for turkeys, because that is the true kill zone. You wanna get into that heart and lung area. And so that anatomy becomes very important to you, where it sits in the bird and how it is. And if you look, as we're folded over here, you see there is a lot of turkey right here. And all of this turkey is breast meat. If you pass an arrow through here or through here, you are probably not gonna get your turkey. You're gonna get blood. You're gonna be really excited. The turkey is gonna do a dance. He may even act dead, but he probably is going to fly to the next county. However, if you get your shot higher in here where the lungs, where this whole system sits, where the heart sits, you'll be able to get your turkey down relatively quick. So again, just to recap vocalizations, you know, we start all the way up front. We're able to control the volume there. We're able to control air. Sounds are not made at the beak. Sounds are made all the way into the chest of the turkey. Just an interesting fact for you to know more about your turkey. I hope you enjoyed the video. Please subscribe. 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