Breeding-Pair Plus Young Male??

[Tame Emu Guy]

Guys, two years in a row – Greedy last year, and now Felicity – I’ve seen a breeding-pair that has a young bird stringin’ along.

Has anyone any insights on this? Does it happen with your ‘mini-flocks’?

Young male trying his luck? I don’t even know it’s a male. Just guessing.


Here below is a typically bad photo. Felicity is at front; Noddy, her consort, behind -- and if you look up the wide aisle just to the right of centre, you can see a bird there. That's it.








Supreme Emu

 

[yinepu]

I wonder if it's one of Noddy's chicks from a previous clutch

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hi, Yinepu!

All ideas are good ideas on this one.

I still ruckon that figuring out how long the male usually parents for is pivotally important ‘cause then we can start guessing where the chicks are between one year old and two years old.

I can recall so many clutches that I’ve sighted here and there in which the chicks were between, say, six months and a year. But I don’t recall ever saying to myself, ‘Wow! That’s a male with a clutch of yearling chicks!’

However, there are Youtube clips that show wild clutches – Dad Plus – in which the chicks are all but full grown.

[Gotta say, Youtube is an interesting place to mine emu information. There are plenty of clips of wild birds.]

S.E.

 

[yinepu]

Hi, Yinepu!

All ideas are good ideas on this one.

I still ruckon that figuring out how long the male usually parents for is pivotally important ‘cause then we can start guessing where the chicks are between one year old and two years old.

I can recall so many clutches that I’ve sighted here and there in which the chicks were between, say, six months and a year. But I don’t recall ever saying to myself, ‘Wow! That’s a male with a clutch of yearling chicks!’

However, there are Youtube clips that show wild clutches – Dad Plus – in which the chicks are all but full grown.

[Gotta say, Youtube is an interesting place to mine emu information. There are plenty of clips of wild birds.]

S.E.

I can see some chicks and dads staying together as "family units" until the chicks reach breeding age... even then if a young adult doesn't find a mate they may still hang around just out of habit ...
i know last year when I turned the youngest birds out with the older birds they all bonded into a giant family.. staying near each other during the day and even sleeping together at night. I'm not sure how that translates to wild birds.. since these guys never had a "dad" to tend to them.. but I have found that mine enjoy the company of others..

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

What I’m focussing on here, Yinepu, is this:

X = male parents for one year
Y = male parents for two years

If X, then the population of competent available adult male emus is ‘A.’
If Y, then the population of competent available adult male emus is only a half of A – tremendous difference in the evolutionary sense.

Now, Alpha Chick represents an impromptu experiment: he’s six months old; on his own; and we can observe him. If a wild male ‘cuts loose’ his clutch at eleven months, he can breed the following month. Would he? Well, Alpha Chick is clearly a special case . . . but he’s doin’ okay, that is, he learned enough in six months with Dad to be able to hold his own.

S.E.

P.s.: ahh! They like to roost in groups? S.E. is sure enough that wild Dad Plus roosts in a group, but otherwise, the roosts I've seen suggest they roost alone.

 

[yinepu]

What I’m focussing on here, Yinepu, is this:

X = male parents for one year
Y = male parents for two years

If X, then the population of competent available adult male emus is ‘A.’
If Y, then the population of competent available adult male emus is only a half of A – tremendous difference in the evolutionary sense.

Now, Alpha Chick represents an impromptu experiment: he’s six months old; on his own; and we can observe him. If a wild male ‘cuts loose’ his clutch at eleven months, he can breed the following month. Would he? Well, Alpha Chick is clearly a special case . . . but he’s doin’ okay, that is, he learned enough in six months with Dad to be able to hold his own.

S.E.

P.s.: ahh! They like to roost in groups? S.E. is sure enough that wild Dad Plus roosts in a group, but otherwise, the roosts I've seen suggest they roost alone.

Mine do.. maybe it's because they are still young?.. or perhaps something that only happens in captivity?

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Perhaps it’s instinctual for the chicks to roost together. They aren’t in sexual competition at that point. There’s safety in numbers.

And here’s a point that relates to the Very Big Picture: in the wild, they are still in ‘emu territory.’ Now, for example, there is a growing night-time network of birds communicating around the clearing here. Perhaps in captivity, with no other emus ‘on the radar,’ they feel more so like flocking.

[This is the last mention of this:

I checked the definition of ‘solitary.’ It has a specific ornithological sense. Also, technical articles on emus say that emus are somewhat solitary. The two things together mean that emus have a lesser flocking instinct than many species of bird, but there is quite clearly some instinct to flock. However, the notion that ‘Emus are a solitary bird’ got onto the Net, and has been zillionously repeated.]

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

The third emu is a female . . .


that's what my mate Alida reckons, and she was feeding wild emu chicks up the road from here in the 60's. Gotta get time to ask her more about it.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Felicity and Noddy are roosting here tonight. That’s good. He’s becoming tame.

Third Bird is with them.

S.E.