A few nights ago at sunset I spotted a strange object on a branch of our neighbours’ tree which overhangs our yard. Then I realised it was a bird.
It was still there next morning. OK, this is not a v good picture but you should be able to make out (as I was after my initial surprise) that it’s a brush turkey. I had not known they roost so high up.
D said he heard it in the neighbouring yard during the day and at sunset I spotted it climbing back up. Since then we’ve seen and heard a bit more of it and it seemed to be settling in.
A few days later when I saw it deploying its eponymous big foot on the lawn I endeavoured to deter it. There is a much more attractive and bushy garden two doors up that I hope (if male) it will make the focus of any mound-building activity. In the long term resistance is likely to be futile.
Maybe it has moved on since then. It hasn’t returned yet to this particular roosting spot.
Given that I’ve indulged in a certain amount of first-cuckooism on this blog, this seemed an encounter worth recording.
Stumbling on melons 
January 29, 2024 at 5:30 pm |
The bush turkey visit is indeed worth noting. I remember Sydney radio broadcaster Wendy Harmer mentioning them when they marched into her kitchen through the open door in her Mona Vale home.
January 30, 2024 at 2:29 am |
They’ve been up the northern beaches for a while. Popular theory seems to be that fox baiting in the last decade or so allowed numbers to build up in north shore bushland. About 5 years ago I first saw them at Parramatta Dam and more recently they’ve made it to Concord and Strathfield. Now that I’ve looked I’ve read a press report of them in Dulwich Hill but not when I was there. As far as I’m concerned this is a first for south of the Cooks River (which is where I am these days). They are like ibis in that they are a large bird which has turned out to be well adapted to modern garden suburbia once it has overcome its fear of people.