Supreme Emu Apologises

[Supreme Emu]

I feel I've disappointed the readers: I just don't see myself being able to get photos of these wild chicks: my health isn't good, and I don't have a decent camera.

They are truly will o' the wisp creatures, readers – they're WILD, and the only reason that they come without a MILE of the farmhouse is because their parent is a little tame.

The two enormous fig trees down the back are the key to it. Oz is the harshest of the continents, and almost nothing naturally sweet grows here. (There's a native plum; and aboriginal Australians were legendary for being able to track down bee hives, which they chopped up and ate on the spot: the bees here had no sting.) So, the figs are Big Time Yummies for the wild emus.

I come out of the house every morning to feed my three birds. I've learned of late that if extra super glukking is audible, then there are probably foreign emus ghosting around the fig trees. This morning, I wandered out the side of the house – ten emus: my three, one wild parent, and six chicks about two feet high (they must be this year's chicks). They stood and stared for three seconds, then they're off . . .

I wandered about five hundred yards down the back, and found them standing in a group in a row of blue gums (aisles of gums: my place is a blue gum plantation). They were about a hundred yards down the row. They stood and watched me for a minute, then waddle-ran off in a group.

If I could get 'emu cam' installed in under the fig tree, we'd get great footage. They sure are super cute!! They're still downy, black; and they mill around in a group. You usually can't see their bodies and legs for the grass, so what you do see is a half a dozen bewildered necks and heads bobbing about.


Supreme Emu

 

[foulman007]

I just found this site a few weeks ago and never knew of the common keeping of emus in the us and to hear first hand accounts of these animals in a more wild setting is amazing. I look forward to your posts and pics will be wonderful if you can get em

 

[dak]

Supreme Emu, No pics needed. Your poetic prose is sufficient to keep us spellbound.

 

[True Grit]

Thanks! You just reminded me of how thrilled I was to see a wild emu on the side of the road I was travelling on my way to Wagga Wagga.

 

[Supreme Emu]

Good heavens! Thank you!

I wrote this yesterday, but wasn't going to post it:

I don't believe this is happening!!

I've just spent an hour lying in the rain under a green plastic smock, watching the wild emus jumping up to grab unripe figs from the fig tree. Eventually, a chick, a little older than this morning's six, wandered out of the gums. Oddly, it seems to be independent. It came to within 33 paces – I stepped it out afterwards. I was able to observe it at length. It's the closest I've ever been to a wild emu chick.

Now I'm inside. I've had a hot shower, and made soup – and lo and behold, the same chick has wandered back out of the gums, and is foraging under the fruit trees just outside the fence.

 

[dak]

Quote:
Do you think the parent is deceased?

 

[Supreme Emu]

Dak, I think:

that we can't necessarily trust the details about emus that we read on, for example, Wiki. Lots of people have told me, for example, that the males parent. However, I have observed thus:

Eric the Emu (recognisable from scars – and I only think he's male because he had chicks in tow) arrived two years ago with one young chick. A week later, two chicks. Then one again; then three, then two, then one, then three. This was over a period of three months. So . . . was he keeping the other chicks in some emu cupboard somewhere?

Next, I recognise Mrs. Eric the Emu simply because she doesn't bolt: Eric will come fairly close; Mrs. Eric sidles about a little to the rear (and dips out on the wheat . . . ) She and Eric seem to have been an item for over two years. That's contrary to the info.

Next, locals and Mr. Internet give me conflicting info on the mating-season; and I'm thoroughly confused – for example, it's January, and my females are still gluk-gluk-glukking ten to the dozen. Does that mean they are still mating? Or is this defence-posturing (at two in the morning?)

I see Eric and Mrs. Eric on their own one day, the next day they're at the fig tree with six chicks. (Poor data, though: at any distance, I can only guess that the emu is Eric because he doesn't bolt outright. He trots off about fifty metres, with the chicks in tow, and sometimes drifts back towards me, whereas a wild emu would simply bolt.)

I've seen three mobs of chicks in the last three months. I'm pretty sure that one mob is last year's – you'd call them, from their size, 'adolescents'; but their still getting around with an adult emu. The second two mobs are this year's – perhaps four to six months. They are just passing from all-cute-downy to semi-downy-semi-feathered. Obviously, they're still with an adult (and it's pretty cool to see them drifting across the open ground up from the house. If they see me, they bolt; but otherwise, the farmhouse doesn't seem to represent a 'standing-danger' to them.)

The lone chick? What puzzled me, Dak, was that my emus tolerated it. Felicity let it come to within two yards of some wheat, and then only foomphed it off a couple of yards (whereas, when Eric plus six chicks have turned up, my three birds make a major fuss – maximum ruff-extension with swing, sideways walkin', maxi-glukking – and 'escort' them from the house-clearing in no uncertain terms.)

On the day that I lay and observed, there were seven adults and the chick around the fig tree. The chick wandered around among the other emus with being harassed. Yes, perhaps it's an orphan. It seems just a little too small to be independent.

Assuming I'm still here next mating-season, I may keep a diary.

Final note: 'degree of bolt': the list is: my three, their parents (with or without chicks), two 'country cousins,' and the wild emus. I think I recognise the two cousins (the wild birds, are I think – ahem – a bit thinner than my birds; and a mate who was a couple of thousand miles north of here – ut's a rool big state! -- told me that the 'desert emus' are noticably thinner) simply because they will stand still for some seconds upon seeing me . . . then 'drift off' rather than bolt.

All readers, please offer any thoughts you have, and set me questions to answer.

Supreme Emu