A Brush with the Law

Playing chicken with a brush-turkey is a full-time job as I recently discovered.

If birds of a feather flock together then you can't blame a single male brush-turkey for choosing my place to build his dream pad and shop for a bride. A large block of land, plenty of nest building material and water views provide the perfect canvas for him to strut his stuff.

Last weekend, Mosman was open for inspection and one bold bird sporting a laterally flattened tail and a resplendent red and yellow fleshy collar resembling mayoral robes landed in my yard.

My next door neighbour once owned a pest control business. He reverted to his then company's advertising slogan of "one flick and they're gone" and with a wave of his hand directed the megapode over the fence into my garden. Until this moment there was no cause for alarm as brush turkeys regularly passed through the neighbourhood.

Things changed when I discovered that construction of the scrub turkey's nest was near completion on my neighbour's property.

A game of pass the feathered parcel over the fence then began between me and the dodgy pest controller. Not once but more than 20 times throughout the day. Each of us determined not to let the interloper complete his dream build.

Things escalated when the scrub turkey decided to linger longer on my side of the fence. Unrelenting in his crusade to create a mound of soil and plant material the size of a car, he began scraping everything he could lay his claws on in the direction of the nest. There was one problem: the fence blocked his path. Bird brain.

I tossed an old boot and a tennis ball at the scrubber. Clapped hands, tapped tin lids together, flung a frisbee in his direction, turned the hose on him and even deployed four-legged artillery in the the form of Maggi the labrador but she bailed out, disinterested mid chase. With each salvo, the turkey simply retreated down the road, only to return minutes later to resume his architectural degree.

By Saturday afternoon the score was deuce as the turkey went back and forth over the fence another 10 times. I'd turned outdoor furniture upside down and placed it on garden beds, cut down dead palm fronds and put them on leafy mounds that were ripe for scratching and even rigged a blue tarpaulin around gardenia shrubs in an effort to put the turkey off his nest-building game.

Meanwhile, pest man had covered his entire garden in white netting. It was a week before Halloween and gossamer-like threads covered his pumpkin patch and wire netting was draped over the lawn and vegetable garden. Both our blocks looked like tip sites.

Few words were exchanged across the fence until it was suggested that I place a mirror in the garden to distract the bird. With a head like a skanky vulture, surely the brush turkey would crack the mirror just by looking at it.

Up at dawn on Sunday, half expecting leaf litter to be strewn everywhere, I caught a glimpse of the feathered protagonist next door scraping material closer to the nest. "Go you good thing" I whispered.  

A deep throaty drumming sound soon followed combined with a clatter of feet and thump of a body on glass as the turkey repeatedly charged into a large mirror that Pete the pest man had placed beside the nest.

Infuriated at what he thought was another male turkey looking straight back at him, he danced in front of the mirror for about four days before eventually giving up and walking out.

I miss my much maligned mate dressed in a mayoral robe. I'd welcome him back with open wings, for he's cheaper than any landscaper and Christmas is just around the corner.