Brush Turkey Mound – Alectura lathami, property, North Tamborine.
I wonder how many of you have seen a turkey mound, which is solely built by the male.
It contains up to four tons of material, comprising leaf litter, twigs, branches and soil, which its builder gathers from a radius of some 30 metres.
The mound has to be kept at the right temperature for the eggs to hatch.
Brush turkeys must be among the worst animal parents on the planet, because once a chick emerges, it is utterly on its own, the adults having nothing more to do with it.
A newly hatched chick is unique among birds in that it has flight feathers which enable it to fly to the safety of a tree branch on the day it emerges.
