Illumination in the Flatwoods is the diary of Joe Hutto, a naturalist who decides to imprint himself on two groups of wild baby turkeys. Imprinting refers to the process of baby birds (and other animals) seeking to determine who their protector / mother is in the first few minutes of life. Turkeys are not born hardwired to imprint on their species so it’s possible to imprint on a human which is what Joe Hutto did.
This book was a true joy to read. I highly recommend it. Joe Hutto does an incredible job of capturing the simple moments that make up the day in the life of baby wild turkeys. This book literally put a smile on my face many many times and everyone in my life knew I was reading about turkeys because I could not stop talking about this man and his birds.
Joe acquires two sets of wild turkey eggs and gets to work being a part of their lives for the next year and onwards. He rotates the eggs and talks to them until they start to hatch. Slowly he begins the process of raising these birds into adulthood. And we follow along on the daily activities of growing up as a wild turkey.
The writing is incredible. It is witty and charming and coveys Hutto’s love of the natural world undisturbed by humans. He writes with a lovely attention to detail and conveys real wonder at the way these ancient birds experience the world around them. And like any good natural history book, he does an amazing job of describing the evolution, genetic history and environment that has shaped these animals.
As you read, you can’t help falling as deeply in love with the turkeys as Joe is.
One of my favourite passages:
“The turkeys definitely are becoming more aggressive by the minute. As I sit in the wire circle, I am surrounded by a small but virtuous industry. Being a small wild turkey is a serious business; they invest themselves totally in their occupation, and every moment seems to be payday. Theirs is an ongoing and constantly varying agenda of responsibilities. There is dusting to be done and, an abandoned anthill serves the job perfectly. [...] Sunlight must also be gathered, and they are hungry for it. It is difficult for them to pass a warm patch of this stuff without some effort to absorb it by stretching out on the ground. Judging by the amount of time if not effort spent in pursuit, I now know wild turkeys to be composed of a large portion of sunshine.”
Hutto also includes wonderful musings on the nature of consciousness. He explains that our language based way of understanding the world isn’t necessarily better than other “less” conscious ways of experiencing the world. He writes:
“Within the evolutionary scheme of things, our particular human consciousness has emerged only recently, relative to our more “unconscious” neurobiological faculties. As such, human consciousness could even be suspected of lacking great biological sophistication compared to the more ancient systems of the brain. “Antiquity” does not necessarily imply that which is primitive. To the contrary, biological systems tend to become more sophisticated and well tuned overtime.”
I wish I could share even more from this section of the book. It sparked a lot of interesting discussion between myself and the friend who recommended this book to me. I often wonder what the experience of other living things is like. Elephants obviously feel emotion but how is it different than my experience? What is suffering to a cow or a pig? There is pain of course but is there more than goes on in their minds? The book expanded further on affection and how different animals show and understand/accept affection. It is a section I re-read a few times.
Again, I highly recommend reading Illumination in the Flatwoods. Even if you’re not a huge fan of natural history books, this one was something special. I could go on forever. I loved every minute of reading this book.
Other resources to check out if reading isn’t your thing, PBS documentary - My Life as a Turkey which was made about Joe and his birds.