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Project Noah Nature School
Megapodius sp. or Talegalla sp.
This is a nest of a megapode. "The megapodes, also known as incubator birds or mound-builders, are stocky, medium-large chicken-like birds with small heads and large feet in the family Megapodiidae." They do not incubate their eggs but rely on the heat produced by fermentation of rotting vegetation in the mound. The chicks are extremely precocial at hatching.
Mixed lowland and sago swamp forest.
Coordinate position is not precise.
Spotted on Dec 15, 2010
Submitted on Sep 2, 2011
8 Comments
Yes they are. I see the nests quite frequently but never a good view of a 'wild' bird...
Wow, they're composters! What a great spotting.
Please add this to the "Signs of Wildlife" mission.
Ah, that's good to hear. I thought maybe you were into bush food.
Oh, I don't pilfer them. The local people gather them for food but they have to endure bird lice hell to do so!
This is the only one I've gotten a half-way decent photo of: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/538...
What do you do with the eggs you've pilfered?
Thank you. I've seen a lot of mounds, and pilfered eggs, but never a live megapode. In northern NG there are two types of eggs most commonly observed. One is like a brown chicken egg but 2-3x larger. The other is red and larger still.
Nice spotting. I've seen one in Queensland, on the bank of the Daintree river. It belonged to an orange-footed scrubfowl.