A Brush with Death

Acrylic on canvas (sold)

122 cm W x 122 cm H
Never has a bird so divided the opinions of visitors coming to my gallery as this Brush Turkey. The Australian Brush Turkey (Alectura lathami), also known as the bush or scrub turkey, has a bad reputation. They are blamed for damaging gardens (making an awful mess as it digs up leaf litter, twigs and dirt to build its egg mound) and darting across roads. Found in eastern Australia from Far North Queensland to the Illawarra in New South Wales, they’ve managed to adapt to life in cities and have also been introduced to Kangaroo Island in South Australia. Brush turkey nests or ‘mounds’ are the size of a car and are made up of soil and plant material. Built by the males to attract a mate, they’re essentially large compost heaps, that take the hard-working male about a month to create.
These mounds generate a huge amount of heat and that’s what incubates the eggs — which is lucky because once the eggs are laid the mother is off, and the father only sticks around to defend the mound. When the chicks have left the nest, the leftover mound is a perfect bit of compost for humans to spread out over the garden.