Lovely photos!
I am here, posting occasionally on the Lilly Pilly thread.
[Limpy Chick and his clutch here now, and Undersized Emu, and one random male.]
SE
'So 2.5 years of age.'
We are both learning. So, these two birds are physically mature, which brings us back to discussions of how the forming of breeding-pairs works in accordance with . . . lots of different factors.
SE
'Is the dancing related to a mating ritual or just normal behavior?'
I think some Youtubers like to post dancing as 'mating dances,' but no. Emus just love to dance, mostly at dawn, and mostly the chicks. It is one of the great delights of observing, to see pint-size emus dancing crazily in...
'Cool, I'll mark March 21st down in my calendar.'
September.
And a further note about north/south:
The three sub-species of emu have habitats that span amazing areas. I am in the bottom-left-hand corner of Western Australia -- rothschildi territory. But think about it, for example, in respect...
' So, is there a sign of maturity in emu plumage?'
To begin: the oddity: sometimes a Dad parents his clutch way into the second year, which makes his 'chicks' technically adult for a brief period at the end.
But your question:
emoos go through three plumages until they reach adulthood. The...
'Translating northern and southern hemispheres bends my mind a bit. We recognize that all birds birthday is January 1st.'
Wonderful! I have invented the first day of spring as Emu Birthday
'It was like he wanted to be with her but he was frightened of her.'
Additional Thought: it is the case in the wild that 'potential consorts' come and go. Indeed, observing these 'newbies' -- who turn up trailing tame-wild Planet Rothschildi birds -- has been a great source of data.
In the...
'The next day, the male, Limu, kept jumping out the the paddock and would pace the fence wanting back in but every time we put him back in he would freak out and hop out.'
There is great wisdom in admitting what you don't know, KsKingBee. I got nothin'! I have no idea how to interpret this...
'their first breeding season'
We (I) got a Big Theory about adulthood in emus. The data you'll find on the Net, from sources like emu farms, suggests that actual physical maturity -- about 18 months -- and the beginning of breeding go together.
My experience suggests something else: that an...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/mating-season-in-australia.641934/
There's no boast here: this is surely the best document on this subject in existence.
Here's a synopsis on what we know:
a female may lay ten eggs -- we know 'cause we've seen cluttches that large.
A female can't crank out eggs willy nilly. The 'X' between the laying of the first egg and the moment the male sits to incubate is some days. (A U.S. incubator said about ten years...