Brinsea Incubator?

[Avie]

Adorable kiwi chick...

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Great photo, Avie. Thank you for finding it.

(Boy, I love these life forms; but they almost compete for weirdness, don't they.)

Supreme Emu

 

[Avie]

I love all the bird-related videos there are on You Tube. They sure didn't have this kind of stuff back in the days of my youth

Back then I bought books and subscribed to magazines and if I had questions I'd write a letter to an expert bird-keeper. But now!! There's websites and videos, and talking to people on forums. It seems like, for every species, there's somebody who loves them and knows a lot about them. It's an amazing resource.

By the way -- my friends who are not bird-people have been very amused when I tell them stories about what goes on here. "There's an EMU forum?!" "Yeah, people from all over the world get together to talk about emus!" "Really?!"

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hi, Avie,

I use Youtube clips as a source of information.

My isolation is both positive and negative. The positive is that I get to see wild emus all the time. (Seen five today – and Felicity and Noddy were here for breakfast. Two were a handsome dark breeding-pair.) The negative is that it is therefore so very hard to fill in certain gaps. Lots of things I’ve seen just don’t seem to be mentioned anywhere on the Net (and I haven’t had the pennies to buy the really expensive books I’d need to track some stuff down).

For example, I spent time locating and observing clutches of wild chicks. After a while, I realised that, when sighted, the male and his clutch doesn’t simply run away. The male stands its ground, and he and the chicks retire in a disciplined and practised manner: the model varies; but the males I’ve seen stay between the intruder and the chicks at first, then run to the lead later on.

Now, if you’re interested enough, watch ‘Youtube Emus on Quilpie Thargomindah road – outback Australia.’ It all goes pear-shaped for the male towards the end of the clip – pre-history has no lessons about rednecks in S.U.V.s chasing your children – but watch the first part carefully. The male simply stops (he doesn’t expect that the vehicle will so rapidly outflank him). Then he bolts to catch up.

[One afternoon, a fine big wild male with a clutch of six or more chicks advanced more than fifteen paces on me as I watched through the binos. Did I, at that second, think that emus are related to dinosaurs? Yes, yes I did!]

You need to patiently put the fragments together, and weed out the stupid Emu Attacked My Camera clips; but there is a lot to be gleaned.

S.E.

 

[Nicophorus]

"There's an EMU forum?!" "Yeah, people from all over the world get together to talk about emus!" "Really?!"

Is this the only Emu forum out there? Also what in the world is up with the ostrich association of America's forum? Wont let you view it if not registered, and impossible to register since it always says you got the "code word" wrong when trying. So frustrating.

And yeah, the internet has changed the world hasn't it? I too remember the pre-internet days where it was all about books and magazines. Was an avid reader too. Now its just all there, at fingertips.

 

[Avie]

My isolation is both positive and negative. The positive is that I get to see wild emus all the time. ...

[One afternoon, a fine big wild male with a clutch of six or more chicks advanced more than fifteen paces on me as I watched through the binos. Did I, at that second, think that emus are related to dinosaurs? Yes, yes I did!]

S.E -- You are like the Jane Goodall of the Emu world!

I would love to be seeing what you see. Also, hearing. I haven't been able to find many good You Tube vids that have emu vocalizations.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hey, Avie!

Sadly, there aren’t many clips. But if you just have no other source, you hunt for those snippets.
Try . . . hmmm . . . looking for one a day. Keep changing your search term, over and over again: ‘emu Australia,’ ‘Wild emu chicks,’ etc.
Unfortunately, I’ve yet to hear a recording of a ‘string’ of booms; but you can hear a female ‘kooking’ on ‘Youtube love is in the air’
[‘kook kook kook kook’ is a recognisable female sound.]

‘Youtube female emu with friends’ – those chicks are afraid, I sense. The recording is terrible, mostly wind – but at about fifteen seconds, there’s the sound of a female vocalising, and it fits with her aggressive posture.

And although it sounds a little crazy, Avie, my 'emu' is now at kindergarten level. Sometimes I can lie with my eyes closed, and guess pretty much what is going on.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hi, Nicophorus,

I looked and looked and looked for an emu forum, even naively expecting Australians to be interested in them. Nuh.
BYC seems to be all but unique.

[Yay, go, us!!]

Supreme Emu