A feathered earth mover
Sep. 15th, 2007 07:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gemfyreLast week was spent camping at a wheatbelt reserve, trapping to monitor woylies (Brush-tailed Bettongs) on the reserve. While I was there I finally saw the bird responsible for these mounds...
The Malleefowl! (Leipa ocellata)
This chicken sized bird builds great mounds of rotting vegetation and sand to incubate it's eggs within. And once the chicks finally hatch they have to make their way out of the mound without help then fend for themselves. The guess was that the biggest of these mounds on the reserve probably contained about 20 ton of dirt! We figured it must be generations old.
More Malleefowl mound photos and other photos from the trip can be seen here - http://pics.livejournal.com/gemfyre/gallery/00020cc0
The Malleefowl is not my own image.
The Malleefowl! (Leipa ocellata)
This chicken sized bird builds great mounds of rotting vegetation and sand to incubate it's eggs within. And once the chicks finally hatch they have to make their way out of the mound without help then fend for themselves. The guess was that the biggest of these mounds on the reserve probably contained about 20 ton of dirt! We figured it must be generations old.
More Malleefowl mound photos and other photos from the trip can be seen here - http://pics.livejournal.com/gemfyre/gallery/00020cc0
The Malleefowl is not my own image.
