Living in the subtropics, near the lazy Brisbane River and near bushland and parks is mostly very pleasant.  Sometimes there are chance encounters with  snakes, or other more common visits from possums, frogs, and recently even a water dragon.  It is wonderful to be able to observe nature as easily as we can – in the main!

Last week, a Brush Turkey decided to claim the area between our neighbour’s place and ours for a nursery.  Having noticed the absence of our neighbour’s dogs, he had been parading around for ages, obviously spying out the terrain.  Some time had been spent checking out the surroundings from the roof,  the top of the pergola, the verandah railing, and other vantage points.  Eventually he found his spot, and construction of the nest he was responsible for, began in earnest. 

Actually, it did not take very long. He was an amazing worker.  In the space of a few hours, he had constructed an enormously impressive mound, about a metre high and more than that in diameter. The eggs the female laid would be incubated in this mound so magnificently constructed by the male.  Attempts to shoo him away were fruitless. His little brain was programmed, and he returned to do more work as soon as your back was turned.  Mulch from our garden beds was scratched and kicked onto his mound and a few bushes were left bare rooted.  Finally, in what looked like a grand entrance for his mate, he constructed a path of strewn leaves and mulch all across the foot paths of both properties. Again, any attempt to clean it up was met with ‘reinstallation’. His doggedness and determination were amazing. 

As always, there are lessons to be drawn from observing nature.  This time I was struck by the idea of stimulus-response whilst watching the turkey’s behaviour.  There was no space between the stimulus of the biological need to build the nest and doing it.  He just went on relentlessly.  Had he chosen to build it on a road and had cars driven over it all day, the next morning, he would have had it there again, ready for the the next onslaught of cars.  He could not learn from experience, but functioned purely out of instinct. As long as he lived, he was ‘programmed’ to live in a particular way, even if it killed him!

Unlike Brush Turkeys, as humans,we do have the option of choosing our behaviour.  Some of us do it better than others, but between a stimulus occuring, and us responding, we have the ability to think, analyse, predict, evaluate, and so on. 

We have the opportunity to make good choices or poor ones and have to face up to the opportunity of living with the consequences of those choices.  Our choice can be made from a perspective of ownership, accountability and responsibility, or from a stance of blame, excuses, and denial.  This choice, no matter what life throws at us is made basically out of love or fear. Our choices will lead us to being a victor, proactive and better, or, on the other hand, a victim, reactive or bitter.  Think about it.  Observe your own behaviour next time there is a ‘stimulus’.  It could be interesting.