Read Away Bonker! Article from Bowhunter Mag!
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Once the tom is near the hen it spends more time strutting; displaying its colorful head, fluffed up body, and spread tail to impress the hen. When hens are within visual distance the less audible sounds of the Spit and Drum can be heard and used to attract them. It's believed that both the Spit and Drum are vocalizations. However, after watching toms snap their wings open on gravel, and hearing a sound like a spit at the exact same moment, I believe that at least some of the sounds that hunters refer to as the Spit may be the sound of the wing tips snapping open or hitting the ground.
Many hunters and turkey researchers have reported that a turkey's tail vibrates when the turkey drums. I do know that when peacocks display by fanning their tail they drum by vibrating the feather shafts of their tail together in what is called a "harmonic rustle." This made me wonder if the drum of a turkey is not also produced by some movement of the tail feathers vibrating together. When I asked Lovett Williams about this he told me he had heard an Ocellated turkey without a tail perform the drum, which suggests that the drum is not produced by the vibration of tail feathers. He was not sure how the bird produced the sound, or whether the spit and drum are vocalizations.
On April 14, 2000, I had the opportunity to observe two domestic penned toms, and to solve the mystery of how these two sounds are produced. Luckily the two domestic birds were extremely tame and allowed me to get close enough to hear both the spit and drum as close as 6 inches away. As I sat near the toms I could hear them inhaling and exhaling deeply, and noted that when the Spit was performed the bird opened it's mouth and expelled air. This Spit was often followed by the drum; a low volume, deep pitched humming sound.
I noticed that the tom's body, especially the tail, vibrated when the drum was produced. When I put my hand on the bird's body I found that the chest (not the lungs) was inflated, suggesting that the birds have large air sacs beneath the skin of the chest region. This area was warm to the touch and I could feel it vibrate when the drum was produced. As a result of this I suspect that the Drum is produced by some movement of the air within the sacs of the bird's chest.
Because the Drum may be produced in the same way as the "booming" of a Prairie Chicken, it may eventually have to be renamed the "Boom." Groups of toms, and dominant toms, may respond to the Spit and Drum of other toms out of dominance. But, subdominant toms and jakes may be scared off, because they are afraid of being attacked by a dominant.
