The Christmas Turkey is moving.

We have a resident Scrub Turkey that is causing us some distress. It is very cheeky. It is raiding our rubbish bin, jumping onto our outside table, and yesterday it even tried to eat our drying dragon. Add to that, the cheeky scrub turkey knocks on our sliding glass door. What! It wants to come into the air conditioning!

Nicknamed “Boy”, home school research now tells us that “Boy” is actually “Girl.” Male Scrub Turkeys have a vibrant yellow wattle around their throat. The “wattle” swings as they walk and puffs up during their mating ritual. Most pretty and entertaining. Boy’s yellow band around his neck is tight. Perhaps he is an immature male but his size does suggest he is full-grown; therefore, we are sure he is a she.

“Boy Girl” is marked for relocation. We love him, we would keep him safe from domestic predators (dogs and cats) but we also want to live around the edge of our home school without fear that “Boy Girl” is going to get cranky and fly at one of us.

We will be calling the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service during the week, to arrange Boy Girl’s relocation to a turkey spot of rain forest pleasure. If he is being this cheeky with us, we worry that perhaps one of our neighbors will be less tolerant and have Scrub Turkey on their Christmas table.

Despite our real concern for "Boy Girl's" safety, and our intention to move him on, he has already given us a huge Christmas bonus. Without him troubling us, we would never have done some turkey research and never have known that it is us who are turkeys for not knowing the difference between a male and female Scrub Turkey.