A bird in the bush

Today I am going to share something very different to yesterday, I took a short road trip and enjoyed a couple of hours in the nearby rainforest so rather than give you something to learn I will give you a little story.
Last weekend much of Queensland was battered by a severe and long lasting storm that has left in its wake immeasurable damage. Damage to homes to businesses and to farms. It has also done a lot of damage to the bush. In monetary terms this is not a national worry, the bush heals. The communities in small towns divided by bush are not so lucky though, the damage to the bush created road closures, gigantic trees fell over roads, landslips and rock slides created hazards to be cleared and access to these small places was compromised.
From my home to the top of the mountain where a small township called Springbrook is situated the roads were cut in several places but amazingly by today the roads were passable. Road crews are still busy and I could see how much had already been done. Colin, my husband, and I decided to take a look at the National Park that wraps around the town of Springbrook. It is one of our favourite places.
The park has many rainforest trees which are characterised by their buttress roots - rainforest trees are shallow rooted, the moisture is filtered through the canopy of the trees and lies on the surface of the soil and in the leaf litter so the roots do not need to penetrate deep into the earth.

Sometimes it seems as if these trees can grow on solid rock, their roots wrap around boulders and stretch over the surface of rocks. They trap the leaves  for their nourishment and the leaves trap the moisture to keep the tree watered. Nature is at her busiest in a rainforest.
We could not go to the National Park without going to see at least one waterfall! The largest and easiest to walk to is named "Purlingbrook". It is a few days since the big rain so the waterfall is not running as fast as it was in the peak of the storm, however it still looks magnificent.

There is a walking track from the lookout that takes the energetic down into the valley and right under the falls, but the deluge had created several hazards - land slips - that made the track unusable so the gate access was locked. A walk to the lookout at the top of the falls was not to be either because debris had been washed down and onto the causeway/footpath and piled up against the safety railing making passage impossible.
Colin and I retreated to a picnic area where we made ourselves comfortable and were joined very quickly by a bird of the rainforest. A scrub turkey.

Not all scrub turkeys are this friendly but many learn that seated humans usually have food that they are willing to share! It is not breeding time -- or if it is, this fellow is not searching for a mate! How do I know? That wrinkly yellow bit on his neck is like a small yellow ruff. In breeding time it relaxes and droops down almost to the top of the legs. The lady turkeys must think it looks really grand!

Our Scrub turkey friend stayed until he was quite sure we didn't have another crumb of our blueberry muffins left and off he strutted to find another free meal at another table further in the park!
To be honest, I quite enjoyed his company because I could use my camera and the new off- camera flash unit I had recently acquired! The bush is quite dark under the trees even on the brightest day - in the first picture you can see that the sun is shining brightly - the bird would have been a full silhouette if I hadn't used the flash. In the second picture the bird is much closer to me and was very difficult to see (very hard to focus on something you cant see!) I held the flash lower than the camera and I was really surprised at how bright the shot came out.
I hope you enjoyed  the shots from our mornings entertainment!
AJ