Developing a device to mimic ocellated turkey

Whistle
1

I am looking for someone knowledgeable about whistles who might advise me about making a whistle that sounds like a vocalization made by the ocellated turkey. I have recordings of the sounds I wish to imitate and can send samples if anybody is really interested in helping with this project. My work with the ocellated turkey is in Guatemala and Belize.

I am familiar with the calls of the North American wild turkey and aware of the various calling instruments available. In fact, I manufacture one myself for sale. The sounds of the ocellated turkey are totally unlike our North American turkey’s calls.

My interest in this is not commercial. There will never be a good market for an ocellated turkey calling device. I need one primarily for conservation and scientific purposes.

There is more about this project on my web site <www.lovettwilliams.com> which I invite anybody with real interest in my project to visit. A brief visit will clarify some things for sure.

I feel sure that somebody with knowledge about whistles and animal sounds and an interest in wildlife conservation is out there who can be helpful and would enjoy participating.

Lovett Williams


[ This Message was edited by: Lovettwilliams on 2002-10-17 11:29 ]

2

Turkey calls? I don’t know.

I wonder whether a samba whistle maker might offer something like that.

3

if they could, i sure would like to see a flock of turkeys doing the samba. ha!

4

I’ve got a couple of whistles that I consider turkeys, but I’m certain that if I send them you’ll be crying fowl.

Jef

5

Two questions:

How does the call of an ocellated turkey differ from that of other North American turkeys, i.e. what’s wrong with a commercial turkey call?

Why not just use a recording of a real turkey?

6

-Cabela’s has tons of domestic turkey calls at:
http://www.cabelas.com/
-The trouble is the ocellated turkey sounds much different, “..like a mechanical whistle..”, or if gobbling, “..like a motor scooter starting up..” according to Googled Oc. Turkey sites. Wow-that doesn’t sound so much like a whistle as like a high frequency whoopee cushion!

Brian O.

[ This Message was edited by: brianormond on 2002-10-16 23:51 ]

[ This Message was edited by: brianormond on 2002-10-17 00:16 ]

7

If the idea of using prerecorded calls isn’t practical—say because you can’t carry around the equipment needed to project it or because you need to give the right answer when the turkey gobbles back—it would probably be cheaper to learn how to mimic the call than to buy a whistle especially designed to do this. I’ve had a bit of fun with this sort of thing myself seeing if I can do it well enough to attract the animals I’m mimicking. I don’t do it any more though, not since I sucessfully mimicked a female doberman on heat.