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