Terry the turbo-chook fixed me with a long, curious stare. He stood alone on a wet patch of grass just inside the Waterworks Reserve, set back from the road so he would not be unduly disturbed.
The idea of a single bird out of the flock – a loner – seemed foreign to the avian world where most feathered creatures congregate as part of a flock.
The way Terry looked at me as I walked past he was probably thinking the same thing. Two loners adrift in the world.
I named the native-hen Terry after seeing him over a period of about two weeks. Terry somehow seemed a name to fit his personality, although I don’t know of any Terrys. It just seemed a good name to conjure up a friendly person. I’d hate to think what Terry might have named me.
In the world of bird study you are not supposed to give birds, or any wild creature, a human name. The professional ornithologists and biologists in general might eschew what they term anthropomorphism but I find it irresistible.
The crow I feed each day in my garden I’ve named Gloria and I can’t resist giving birds human characteristics and personalities. It goes with the turf, on which the native-hen can invariably be found probing for insects.
The Turbo-chook is the vernacular name for the Tasmanian native-hen. It is so called because of its surprising turn of speed if startled and alarmed. It must rely on its speed, and an ability to swim, because it is flightless. What’s more, Tasmania is the only place in the world where it is found. The native-hen intrigued the European settlers when they arrived in the early 1800s and the indigenous population, the Palawa people, had a name for this member of the Raillidae family, which includes moorhens and gallinules – they called it triabunna.
Native-hens are unusual in the bird world in that the female is dominant in the social structure. In fact, females run a “harem” of young males who cater for their every need, including rearing chicks who may or may not be their own.
Just how young males pair up with females I’m not sure, and I presume fledglings at some stage are cast off into the great wide world to go in search of a group, which may be run by several females, willing to accept them.
Does this explain a lone native-hen? Although sexes are alike, I am pretty certain he was a male because females would be paired up by the start of spring.
Terry was coping well on his own, his mossy-green plumage shimmering in the sunlight, his red eye bright and clear.
Terry the Turbo-chook looking for someone to love, whom he might have to share with others. All the same, I wished Terry luck