The two heavyweights circled and sized up each other. This went on for several seconds. Then contact was made. They began jumping, flapping their wings, and kicking with their spurs. Then the dominant tom used his beak to grab the head of the lesser tom. Sometimes he would grab the back of the head and other times it was the front of the head. At one point he held the face of the weaker tom for about 2 minutes and would not let go. With their heads locked together they twisted and turned their necks and spun around in the cut corn. Eventually the dominant tom was successful in defending his position and chased the loser away.
The photos turned out relatively good. Some are slightly out of focus due to movement of the birds and I had to zoom in quite a bit on most of the photos and I was doing it with just a hand held camera.
Here are some photos leading up to the fight, the fight itself, and the loser being chased away.
The dominant tom is in the foreground gobbling. The challenger is strutting in the background.
A close up of the dominant tom before the fight as the challenger is circling around out of the photo.
Circling and sizing up their opponent just like boxers do.
Jumping, thrashing and kicking at the start of the fight.
In the next few photos note all of the biting by the dominant tom and how he holds onto the back of the head or the face of the lesser tom.
The fight lasted about 5 minutes and then the winner chased the loser away. This picture was really cool as it captured the iridescence of the winner’s feathers.
cool