The Malleefowl is a member of the family of birds called megapode, which means “great footed”. 

Malleefowl have powerful feet for building mounds and moving twigs and litter. Instead of incubating its eggs like other birds it uses the heat of this giant “compost heap” to incubate its eggs.

The Brush Turkey which lives in wetter areas can make a nuisance of itself by building a mound out of the garden is also a megapode.

Unlike the Brush Turkey, the Malleefowl is found in remote hot dry areas of bush called Mallee Woodland where it probably uses the heat of the sun as well as the heat created by decomposing vegetation. 

It certainly does not make a nuisance of itself.

Mallee woodland is found north and north west of Narrandera.

The Mallefowl has declined in number greatly in recent years probably due to predation of eggs and chicks by foxes and cats and competition for food by goats and other grazers.

In order to work out what we have remaining so protective measures can be put in place Local Land Services has initiated a Mound Monitoring Program over the next five years.

This involves volunteers walking through the mallee to previously located and marked mounds and taking various observations including checking of recent scraping and raking by the malleefowl.

Walking through the mallee can be challenging: it can be thick with strangle vine or closely spaced trees and it looks the same in every direction.

Volunteers mark their cars before setting off so they can find it again and set off to a GPS marked mound. Despite the tough dry conditions, the mallee is diverse with many flowering plants putting on a great display including terrestrial orchids.

Some teams lost their cars, some teams saw malleefowl at work (often a once in a lifetime sighting) and some teams were at risk of sleeping outside that night.

Most teams had a great time bushwalking through mallee with purpose and a sense of achievement.