Rio Grande Wild Turkey

Rio Grande wild turkeys run paler and more copper-toned than their eastern cousins, and the surest way to tell them apart is in the tail — tipped in yellowish buff or tan rather than chestnut brown. They're a bird of the brushy scrub country of the southern Great Plains and northeastern Mexico, and they lean toward open ground rather than the deep woods Eastern turkeys favor. Come winter, Rio Grandes can gather into flocks several hundred strong, fanning out several miles from the roost each day to feed before returning by evening.