birding-aus

A Scrub Turkey anecdote and odd (?) Scrub Turkey behaviour

To: inger vandyke <>
Subject: A Scrub Turkey anecdote and odd (?) Scrub Turkey behaviour
From: L&L Knight <>
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:13:04 +1000
G'day Inger

I had a mound behind my back fence years ago. My answers are as follows:

1. No.  He sounds like a deviate

2. I doubt it.

3. Male turkeys don't appreciate females messing about with their mounds.

4. Depends on what you mean a family. The parents don't tend to the chicks that emerge [around dawn I think]. You may get a creche forming where the young turkeys band together. I've seen groups of three walking about together - with the birds separated by a week or two in age [visibly different in size].

5. From memory, mating happens early in the morning as well. It's a fairly physical affair, with the male appearing to give the female a tough time while she digs a hole for the egg. He certainly stretches the skin at the back of the neck when they do the deed.

Regards, Laurie.



On 20/07/2008, at 6:56 PM, inger vandyke wrote:


Hi Syd,

We have just moved to a spot between Byron and the Gold Coast and we have a mound about 10m away from our back door. Mr Turk (I call him Testosteronus maximus due to the size of his wattles) has been actively excavating and renovating it since we arrived. He catapults stuff all over the place, sometimes with such vigour that he sends stuff flying around 2m into the air.

I have, however, noticed a couple of odd bits of behaviour which I hope some of you can assist with (especially since I am a philistine of Scrub Turkey activities).

1. As I was unpacking boxes, I sat on the back step watching Test do his thing while I ate an apple. He dropped everything and came tearing over to me so obviously the previous tenants have been feeding him. I gave him a tiny piece of apple (I know I shouldn't do this - sorry!) and he did something really strange. To eat it, he splayed his entire body out on the ground with his wings out and wattles resting while he ate. Is this normal?

2.  Do Scrub Turkeys also mate for life?

3. There is a female hanging around but he chases her around relentlessly, especially if she goes anywhere near his construction work.

4.  Is there a likelihood we'll have a family out the back?

Any thoughts or input from Scrub Turkey experts would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Inger





Inger Vandyke

Natural History Writer and Photographer

Publicity Officer - Southern Oceans Seabird Study Association (SOSSA)

Mob:  0402 286 437



www.ingervandyke.com









Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 17:47:34 +1000
From: 
To: 
Subject: [Birding-Aus] A Scrub Turkey anecdote


WARNING:  Long posting.  Delete now if not interested in Megapodes.

-------------

[Tamborine Mountain is inland from the Gold Coast. St Bernard's Hotel and
the associated Mt Tamborine Motel are towards the southern end of the
plateau.]

No accounting for Scrub Turkeys! St Bernard's Hotel is built just back from the steep drop over the side of the plateau. The motel runs lengthways parallel to the scarp, just to the west of the Hotel. There's a swimming
pool beside the motel on the side away from the scarp, and a gap,
bitumen-sealed, that would be just wide enough to get a small car along between the end of the Motel/pool and a high netting (chain-wire) fence.
Rainforest trees just the other side of the fence.

One approaches the motel from the south and there's a large sealed area serving as parking space for the motel and overflow parking for the Pub. In the south-west corner of it, there's a "garden" bed, about 5 m wide, along the fence, with a couple of trees in it. And at the top (motel) end
of it Turk has built his mound.

Now there's not much in the way of leaves to be gathered from a treeless sealed area. And you can't rake leaves through a netting fence. So where does Turk get his mound material? From the garden along the edge of the scarp on the far side of the motel. He has to move the material 50 m along
the sealed path.  Amazing!

At first sight, it looked to me as though the hotel groundsman had made a dump of leaves etc., but then I found Turk on top of it and there could be no doubt it was his doing. And I wondered where he could have got the material. Didn't occur to me that he would consider getting it from beyond the motel ... and then I found him vigorously hurling leaf-mould out of the garden onto the lawn in front of our unit. And later I noted that the mound had a lot of the very distinctive 'ferny' leaves of the Silky Oak and the
only Silky Oak tree is right on the edge of the scarp.

When we arrived Thursday lunch-time the path was clean and bare. By the time we left, (Sat. morning) the scarp end of it of was a mess again. Poor Chris. I quizzed him this morning, and yes, he'd swept the path clean Thursday morning. I hope whenever he does, that he adds it to the mound.
(Chris and Vicki Howe operate the motel.)

Amazingly vigorous 'raking' that bird has. He simply hurls material back behind him. And if it contains any dense object it will fly through the air
for three to five metres!

Seemed to me to be a bit early (mid-July) for an active mound, but he was
right into it; fully developed wattles and all.

Cheers.

Syd

[BTW - Whipbird calling just through the netting fence. And in previous years I've heard Albert's Lyrebirds in the valley below the cliff. Didn't
check this year.

Oh yes! And the Hotel does have a real St Bernard dog. He's HUGE!!!]
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