Australian Brush-turkey
Alectura lathami

The Australian Brush-turkey (also known as a Bush Turkey) is one of the three species of megapodes in Australia (see also the Orange-footed Scrubfowl) and is easily recognised by their brightly coloured head, neck and ruff. They have a distinctive flattened tail that fans out vertically. The males are more brightly coloured than the females (this photo is a male). They build large mounds in which they incubate the eggs, which gives rise to the common name for the megapodes of mound-builders. They occur down the Eastern side of Australia and far northern populations have a light blue ruff instead of yellow. They are large birds at 70 cm in length. They usually occur in woodland, where they scrape around on the floor for food but can also come into gardens and dig up lawns, which can make them unpopular.