Between November 2017 and September 2020 ninety-seven bush Turkeys were tagged on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and North Shore. This post Graduate project was a Sydney University collaboration with Taronga Conservation Society and the Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden.

These six month old bush turkeys were caught using foot-noosing, tagged, and released included 49 males and 48 females. Each bird was assigned a number, had blood taken for DNA sampling, its’ wingspan, weight, head and beak length measured, and their sex recorded. The Research scientists produced an app that allows people to record the locations and behaviours of these native birds. The data generated furthered their knowledge of these species.

These wing tags, individually identifying each bush turkey have been used to track their movements across Sydney as people uploaded their sightings onto the Bush Turkey app. At Little Manly #95 and #94 haven’t moved far but have survived to rule the roost in the park and the beach. Over at Shelly #91 has been hanging out on Marine Parade breeding up a storm, so much so that the Boat House is now concerned about their precocious behaviour in the cafe joining the patrons at the tables.

In addition to the bush Turkey app there was also a Wingtags app for tagged Cockatoos and Ibises but in 2021 both apps were merged into the ‘Big City Birds’ app and website. The information and photos uploaded continues to assist the researchers in understanding how the birds are spreading, their social interactions, and their health in different areas.

The bush turkey is one of about 22 species of megapode, which means ‘big feet’. These birds incubate their eggs by laying them in warm mounds of decaying vegetation, rather than sitting on them. Megapodes are only found in the Indo-Pacific region, with three species in Australia – the mallee fowl, orange-footed scrub fowl and the bush turkey. Unique among all birds, megapode parents play no part in the rearing of their young.

The male bush turkey, with an almost obsessive purposefulness, constructs a mound for the females to lay their eggs. These mounds can take on gargantuan proportions as sand, soil, leaf-litter, sticks and twigs are raked into a carefully shaped compost heap with the aid of those big feet. All the scrapping and racking exposes insects and worms in the soil, but lately the bush turkeys have become frequent quests in cafes, playgrounds and picnic areas where food scraps can be easier and more plentiful to obtain than the insects and worms in the soil. Bush turkeys also love the pet food leftovers at the back door.

A typical bush turkey mound can measure up to 4m in diameter and stand 1.5m high. One of the biggest in Manly is in Kangaroo St at about 2.5m high and 3m wide. Each male will then mate with several females, and his mound might eventually contain up to 50 eggs. A female may produce between 20 and 30 eggs in every six-month-long breeding season.

Once the female lays her egg 40–150cm down, however, she plays no part in tending the mound, with the burden of maintenance falling entirely to the male. The male turkey obsesses over the temperature of the mound, constantly fussing over it using his beak as a probe, inserting it into the mound as far down as the level of the eggs. His palate acts as a thermometer, and, depending on the temperature he senses, here moves or adds leaf-litter as needed.

Once the chicks have hatched, they are on their own and survival is tough in the urban environment with predation by foxes and cats their main threats. However, fox baiting by Councils and National Parks in recent years has reduced the number of foxes and allowed the turkeys to thrive. Bush Turkeys, like all native animals are protected.