I can't remember whether the twelve days of Xmas precede or follow Xmas
day, but one of the signs of Xmas in SEQ is the emergence of the young
turks. We live about half a km from the nearest mound, but in the last
day or so, we have been visited by a couple of newly hatched turkeys who
find our hankerchief sized forest an attractive transit point.
Leanne and I were up at the Mount Coot-tha tea house yesterday morning,
and it was interesting to watch the turkish waiters in action. One was
most bold and persistantly stalked the piece of cake at a young woman's
elbow.
There were also a fair few turkeys in the Mt Coot-tha botanical gardens,
as well as a very large number of water dragons [it would take a long
time to poke a stick at all of them]. Leanne almost stepped on a metre
long tree snake and it was nice to hear the whip birds calling in the
forested section [it is always interesting to see how long it takes
birds to colonise emergent opportunities].
It was also nice to hear a pair of whipbirds calling on the northern
flanks of Mt Gravatt this morning.
Anyhow, to get back to the turkeys, it was humourous to see turkeys
featuring on one of those "Sandra Scully Presents ..." [ie tops and
tails] shows in Ch 10. It was supposidly about predatory birds - gulls,
terns, frigate birds as well as raptors. Anyhow, for some reason, the
show also had a segment on bush turkeys [perhaps because they eat the
odd worm] which the narrator was calling "scrub fowls" - perhaps they
didn't want to confuse yanks who may not realise there are "turkeys"
outside of the lower 49.
Regards, Laurie.
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
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