mallee fowl

(also known as ‘lowan’, ‘incubator bird’, ‘bush chook’, ‘gnow’)

a kind of bird – ground-dwelling – related to domestic chicken and turkey –medium-sized, stout body with brown or grey with mottled (spotted) with black or brown, underside grey, relatively small head and beak (bill), short but strong legs; size: 1½-2 feet tall, and weight: 1½-2 Kg; feeds on (eats) insects, lizards, worms, and seeds, flowers, buds of plants; lives for 25-30 years; found in Australia

male ~~ cock

female ~~ hen

baby ~~ chick

group ~~ —

voice (call) ~~ lowing call; grunt

home ~~ mound (nest/breeding mound – for laying eggs only)

{The word ‘Mallee’ means ‘a kind of woody plant’ and ‘a region in southern Western Australia’.}

Special Features:

The mallee fowl is noted for its breeding mound building!  The male constructs a mound-shaped nest 2-5 metres in diameter and 1 metre high, spending about 9 months each year!

The ground is scraped to a shallow bowl and is filled with vegetation – leaves, grasses, bark, etc. and is covered with soft sand.  When it is the time for egg laying, the male builds an egg chamber in which the female lays eggs, and then the male and female cover the mound with some soil.  The male checks the temperature of the mound regularly, keeping the temperature at 32-34 degrees using its beak as a “thermometer”!  The vegetation in the mound decays during the rainy season, and heat generated from the decaying vegetation incubates the eggs.  Both male and female dig out some of the soil if the temperature is high, and adds some more soil if the temperature is low!

When they hatch, the chicks dig out of the mound on their own: parents do not help them in any way.  It takes a lot of time and energy for the chicks to dig themselves out of the nest mound.  And once they are out of the mound they run away into the near-by bushes and never see their parents or other siblings (= the other chicks from the same clutch of eggs)!

It is surprising to know that within 24 hours of birth the little chicks can fly!!

Figures of Speech:

as wary as a mallee hen guarding her eggs (‘wary’ = watchful, on guard, alert)

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