Have brush turkeys taken over your garden? The Australian brush turkey (Alectura lathami), also known as the bush or scrub turkey, has a bad reputation.

Brush turkeys are blamed for damaging gardens and darting across roads. Found in eastern Australia from Far North Queensland to the Illawarra in New South Wales, they've managed to adapt to life in cities such as Brisbane and Sydney, and have also been introduced to Kangaroo Island in South Australia.

The characteristic nature of the brush turkey is to lurk in gardens making an awful mess as it digs up leaf litter, twigs and dirt.

But there are good reasons to admire — if not love — this native bird, as revealed by 'turkey whisperer' Professor Darryl Jones of Griffith University.

1. Brush turkeys are unusual self-starters

Brush turkeys are born as orphans ( Ann Goth )

These birds have a pretty tough start to life — after hatching from their egg they spend the first two days of their life scrambling vertically through a metre of dirt and compost to reach the surface.

Their parents have little to do with them and the chicks grow up without adults to protect them or teach them the ropes.

Luckily they can fly straight away, but they have to use their instincts to quickly learn how to forage and stay safe from predators.

2. Brush turkeys are ancient

The brush turkey belongs to a family that dates back 30 million years ( Flickr.com: James Niland (CC-BY-2.0) )

Brush turkeys are the most ancient member of a family that dates back 30 million years and includes chickens, quails, peacocks and pheasants.

Their egg incubation process — dumping them in a mound and abandoning them — is an extraordinarily primitive nesting behaviour, closer to a crocodile than a normal bird's.

In many places in Australia brush turkeys are totems for Aboriginal people.

3. Brush turkeys helped people survive the Great Depression

Brush turkey eggs are bigger than goose egg and make great omelettes because they are 80 per cent yolk ( Ann Goth )

They may have an ancient lineage but that didn't help brush turkeys elude human predators — the birds were nearly wiped out during the 1930s because they are so easy to hunt.

During the Great Depression when jobs and food were scarce the brush turkey became a reliable source of meat and eggs. The eggs are bigger than a goose egg and are 80 per cent yolk.

They were so widely used that the Country Women's Association had recipes for brush turkey egg omelette.

4. Brush turkey males make compost in the name of love

Brush turkey mounds are the size of a car ( Flickr.com: Doug Beckers (CC-BY-SA-2.0) )

Brush turkey nests or 'mounds' are the size of a car and are made up of soil and plant material. Built by the males to attract a mate, they're essentially large compost heaps. So large, in fact, that they take the hard working male about a month to create.

Just like a good compost heap, these mounds generate a huge amount of heat and that's what incubates the eggs — which is lucky because once the eggs are laid the mother is off, and the father only sticks around to defend the mound.

When the chicks have left the nest the leftover mound is a perfect bit of compost for humans to spread out over the garden. The mounds are generally in use between August and February and you can be sure it's abandoned once you see seedlings growing on top.

5. The turkeys are a bit of nature in the city

A brush turkey on its mound ( Flickr.com: James Niland (CC-BY-2.0) )

Brush turkeys were actively hunted for a century and have been pushed out of much of their habitat by human settlement.

But since the protection of native animals in 1972 the birds have been slowly growing in number and returning to native gardens and parks in urban areas.

They've managed to survive living with cats and cars, against expectations that these would decimate them. Obviously, enough of the estimated 20 eggs laid a year by females survive to keep numbers growing.

And while they may be annoying to have in your veggie patch, they're a really unusual bit of nature that some experts are staggered to find we've got it in our backyard.

