The Turkey: Holiday Delicacy and One-time Proposed Symbol of the United States

A Broad Breasted Bronze tom (male turkey)

Fun Facts About the Turkey

 

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  Wild turkeys in their natural habitat

  Turkeys originated in North and Central America.

• Usually the turkeys are found in hardwood forests with grassy areas but they are capable of adapting themselves to different habitats.
• Turkeys spend the night in trees.
• You can easily see a turkey on a warm clear day or during light rain.
• Turkeys fly to the ground at first light and feed until mid-morning. Feeding resumes in mid-afternoon.
• Turkeys start gobbling before sunrise and generally continue through most of the morning.
• The field of vision of wild turkey is so good that it is about 270 degrees.
• The wild turkey has excellent hearing.
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  A turkey can run up to 20 mph

  A spooked turkey can run at speed up to 20 miles per hour.

• A wild turkey can run at speed of up to 25 miles per hour.
• A wild turkey can fly for short distances at up to 55 miles per hour.
• Domesticated turkeys or the farm-raised turkeys cannot fly.
• Turkeys were one of the first birds to be domesticated in the America.
• The male turkeys are called ‘tom’, the female turkeys are called ‘hen’ and the baby turkeys are called ‘poult’.
• The male turkeys gobble whereas female turkeys make a clicking noise.
• The male turkeys gobble to attract the female turkeys for mating. The gobble is a seasonal call made during the spring and fall.
• A mature turkey generally has around 3,500 feathers. The Apache Indians considered the turkey timid and wouldn’t eat it or use its feathers on their arrows.
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  Roast turkey is typically consumed in America during Thanksgiving and/or Christmas

  According to an estimate, during the Thanksgiving holiday more than 45 million turkeys are cooked and around 525 million pounds of turkey is eaten.

• About ninety-five percent of American families eat turkey on the Thanksgiving Day whereas fifty percent eat turkey on Christmas holiday.
• Almost fifty percent of Americans eat turkey at least once every 2 weeks.
• According to the National Turkey Federation about twenty-four percent of Americans purchase fresh turkeys for Thanksgiving and seventy percent purchase frozen turkeys.
• North Carolina is the number one producer of turkeys. It produces around 61 million turkeys per year. Minnesota and Arkansas are second and third number producers of turkey.
• The part of the turkey that is used in a good luck ritual is known as the ‘wishbone’.
• The red fleshy growth from the base of the beak that hangs down over the beak is called ‘snood’. It is very long on male turkeys.

 

Special thanks to www.thanksgivingnovember.com

Lightning: Mother Nature’s Light Show

Lightning

Fun Facts About Lightning

• Lightning is a form of electrical discharge between clouds or between a cloud and the ground.
  

  Ball lightning

• The discharge may take place between two parts of the same cloud, between two clouds, or between a cloud and the ground.

• Lightning may appear as a jagged streak, a flash in the sky, or in the rarer form of a brilliant ball.

• Thunder is the sound waves produced by the explosive heating of the air in the lightning channel during the return.

• Most lightning strikes occur either at the beginning or end of a storm.

• The average lightning strike is six miles long.Lightning is not confined to thunderstorms. It’s been seen in volcanic eruptions, extremely intense forest fires, surface nuclear detonations, heavy snowstorms, and in large hurricanes.
  

  Volcanic lightning

• Lightning reaches 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, fours times as hot as the sun’s surface.

• A cloud-to-ground lightning channel can be 2 to 10 miles long.

• Voltage in a cloud-to-ground strike is 100 million to 1 billion volts.

• Lightning is underrated as a risk because it usually claims only one or two victims at a time and does not cause mass destruction of property.

• Lightning affects all regions. Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, and Colorado have the most lightning deaths and injuries.

• Lightning kills more people on an annual basis than tornadoes, hurricanes or winter storms. It is second only to flash floods in the annual number of deaths caused by storm-related hazards.

• Damage costs from lightning are estimated at $4-5 billion each year in the U.S.

• Around the earth there are 100 lightning strikes per second, or 8,640,00 times a day.

• What is commonly referred to as heat lightning, is actually lightning too far away to be heard. However, the storm may be moving in your direction.

• There are approximately 100,000 thunderstorms in the U.S. each year.

• Rubber shoes do nothing to protect you from lightning.Americans are twice as likely to die from lightning than from a hurricane, tornado or flood.

• Talking on the telephone is the leading cause of lightning injuries inside the home.

• Standing under a tall tree is one of the most dangerous places to take shelter.

• If your hair stands up in a storm, it could be a bad sign that positive charges are rising through you, reaching toward the negatively charged part of the storm. That’s not a good sign! Your best bet is to get yourself immediately indoors.
  

  Blue lightning

• The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimates there are 200 deaths and 750 severe injuries from lightning each year in the U.S.

• The odds of being struck in your lifetime is 1 in 3,000.The odds of becoming a lightning victim in the U.S. in any one year is 1 in 700,000.

• 20% of all lightning victims die from the strike.

• 70% of survivors will suffer serious long-term effects.

• Annually, there are more than 10,000 forest fires caused by lightning.

• 85% of lightning victims are children and young men aged 10-35 engaged in outdoor recreation and work activities outside.

• 70% of all lightning injuries and fatalities occur in the afternoon.

• Most lightning deaths involve people working outdoors and outdoor recreationists.

• Lightning in remote terrain creates dangerous conditions. Hikers, campers, backpackers, skiers, fishermen, and hunters are especially vulnerable when they’re participating in these activities.

• Many survivors of lightning strikes report that immediately before being struck their hair was standing on end and they had a metallic taste in their mouth.

• If you can hear thunder, you are within 10 miles (16 kilometers) of a storm—and can be struck by lightning. Seek shelter and avoid situations in which you may be vulnerable.

• Use the 30-30 rule, when visibility is good and there is nothing obstructing your view of the thunderstorm. When you see lightning, count the time until you hear thunder. If that time is 30 seconds or less, the thunderstorm is within six miles (ten kilometers) of you and is dangerous. Seek shelter immediately.

• The Fourth of July is historically one of the most deadly times of the year for lightning in the U.S.. In summer, especially on a holiday, more people are outside, on the beach, golf course, mountains, or ball fields. Outdoor jobs such as construction and agriculture, and outdoor chores such as lawn mowing or house painting are at their peak, putting people involved in danger.

• Long-term injuries from a lightning strike can include memory & attention loss, chronic numbness, muscle spasms & stiffness, depression, hearing loss, and sleep disturbance.

• Some scientists think that lightning may have played a part in the evolution of living organisms. The immense heat and other energy given off during a stroke has been found to convert elements into compounds that are found in organisms.

Special thanks to  www.strikealert.com and www.nationalgeographic.com