Emu pictures and stories.... post them here
- Thread starter kathyinmo
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Tamatt27, more details please!!
The fifth photo, of head and neck with indistinct background, is very nice.
Supreme Emu
The fifth photo, of head and neck with indistinct background, is very nice.
Supreme Emu
World Emu-Lover's Exclusive Here on BYC
These two photos are left over from the mating-season thread. We can be proud of these readers. I have searched extensively on Youtube – literally hours and hours – to find footage of emus. There are a couple of clips of nests without the bird, and there are great clips of nesting birds in wild life parks. But I didn’t find a single photo or clip of a nesting bird that wasn’t in a park of some sort. This bird is not outright wild. He’s the consort of my tame female; but he incubated in a 100% natural setting, so these photos are sorta rare. For example, the photo in which the bird is kneeling is not a great photo, but it is of a non-captive male turning the eggs.
By the time I got the closeup, Boy Emu was only about five hours short of abandoning the nest. There are five chicks under him in this photo. Watching a chick get under a nesting bird is amazing. The bird's feathers form a sort of 'curtain' around him. The tiny chick waddles up to dad, puts his beak into the 'curtain' of feathers . . . then pushes in and disappears. The best spot in the house is right under the vent: I figured out that there's a little 'room' there between the folded legs and the draping tail feathers. Imagine being a day-old chick, sitting in the warm darkness under dad's feathers, with howling wind and pouring rain 'outside,' and around you the peeps of your siblings as they fight their way out of the shells. (I got to watch, through binoculsrs, the chicks beaks pushing out of the shell on one occasion that this male stood up to check proceedings.)
Finally, note the 'flat' looking patch around the bird's tail. That's the nest. No kidding. This bird's nest was nothing like a fairty-tale bird's nest. It was just a squashed spot on the ground.
I’m re-posting this photo with a different caption: this is dawn at the bridge down the road from my place. I have been auditing wild birds (listening to them ‘talk’) just a few hundred yards up the road, but earlier than this photo was taken. I get to see some wonderful scenery during the observing and auditing.
This photo was sent to a breeder to explain a particular thing. But I’ll include it here, just for fun, and pardon the poor quality and the clothes: the bird on the left, snuggled down happily in the grass just outside my back fence, is about 99% wild. It’s only his third visit to the house-clearing.
Supreme Emu
These two photos are left over from the mating-season thread. We can be proud of these readers. I have searched extensively on Youtube – literally hours and hours – to find footage of emus. There are a couple of clips of nests without the bird, and there are great clips of nesting birds in wild life parks. But I didn’t find a single photo or clip of a nesting bird that wasn’t in a park of some sort. This bird is not outright wild. He’s the consort of my tame female; but he incubated in a 100% natural setting, so these photos are sorta rare. For example, the photo in which the bird is kneeling is not a great photo, but it is of a non-captive male turning the eggs.
By the time I got the closeup, Boy Emu was only about five hours short of abandoning the nest. There are five chicks under him in this photo. Watching a chick get under a nesting bird is amazing. The bird's feathers form a sort of 'curtain' around him. The tiny chick waddles up to dad, puts his beak into the 'curtain' of feathers . . . then pushes in and disappears. The best spot in the house is right under the vent: I figured out that there's a little 'room' there between the folded legs and the draping tail feathers. Imagine being a day-old chick, sitting in the warm darkness under dad's feathers, with howling wind and pouring rain 'outside,' and around you the peeps of your siblings as they fight their way out of the shells. (I got to watch, through binoculsrs, the chicks beaks pushing out of the shell on one occasion that this male stood up to check proceedings.)
Finally, note the 'flat' looking patch around the bird's tail. That's the nest. No kidding. This bird's nest was nothing like a fairty-tale bird's nest. It was just a squashed spot on the ground.
I’m re-posting this photo with a different caption: this is dawn at the bridge down the road from my place. I have been auditing wild birds (listening to them ‘talk’) just a few hundred yards up the road, but earlier than this photo was taken. I get to see some wonderful scenery during the observing and auditing.
This photo was sent to a breeder to explain a particular thing. But I’ll include it here, just for fun, and pardon the poor quality and the clothes: the bird on the left, snuggled down happily in the grass just outside my back fence, is about 99% wild. It’s only his third visit to the house-clearing.
Supreme Emu
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Very nice photos...... I love the dawn photo.
As soon as I get things up to speed here at the farm and recover from my up coming surgery I'll get out the ol camera and start getting some pics too. I miss taking photos.... The emus are growing so much. Ramona and Zippy are already as tall as me....
As soon as I get things up to speed here at the farm and recover from my up coming surgery I'll get out the ol camera and start getting some pics too. I miss taking photos.... The emus are growing so much. Ramona and Zippy are already as tall as me....
They are from our first pair: first 4 are the male, Raptor and the 5th one of the female, Lightening.
Good luck with your up-coming, E.H.
I avoid run-amuk technology, but My Computer Guy is a good friend, and he will loan me a digital camera. I was thinking of trying to set up 'wild-emu-cam' at the fig tree during fig season. That would give you U.S. guys et al. a look at truly wild birds in a 99.9%-wild setting.
Supreme Emu
I avoid run-amuk technology, but My Computer Guy is a good friend, and he will loan me a digital camera. I was thinking of trying to set up 'wild-emu-cam' at the fig tree during fig season. That would give you U.S. guys et al. a look at truly wild birds in a 99.9%-wild setting.
Supreme Emu
Could Your Emu Run for Congress?
Homicide statistics (for people-on-people, not emu-on-people or other) show the tremendous potential for improving the world: the incidence of homicide in the most dangerous countries in the world is 500 times higher than in the safest countries.
My great interest in life is political theory, particularly the interplays between nature and environment; and I’m astounded by emus’ ability to learn. ‘What?’ I hear you say, ‘Emus are as thick as two short planks!’ Well . . . yes and no. As we love them, let’s spend a minute sorting the wheat from the chaff:
I’ve found an anecdote about an emu that would get into random cars because it liked riding in cars. Guys, that’s learned behaviour.
Raptor describes how Gerry played with the local kids, weaving back and forth so they could almost-catch him. That’s a calculation.
Emu Hugger’s bird, I think it is, understands, ‘No!’
I will never forget the day that Felicity figured out how to get the plums. She was presented a problem that required lateral thinking: just going in a straight line wouldn’t get her the plums. I swear you could see the cogs going around in her head.
Go check out Maxwell the Emu on Youtube. (Really, check him out. It’s funny funny funny.) Okay, this bird is a bubblebrain, and that’s why we’re laughing at him; but – and here’s my thesis – the point is not that what he learned is pathetic, the point is that he could learn it ‘cause he’s not wandering around in a desert in Western Australia, with absolutely no project in life beyond mating every season until he dies of old age.
So, me being me, I have been patiently analysing these episodes in respect of what behaviours are (a) probably truly instinctual – like Boy Emu accepting the chick that I quite literally ‘gave’ him – and which are (b) learned, like Greedy walking into the carport to peck the coffee can, to see if it will give her some wheat, and which are (c) combinations of the two.
Memory deserves a special mention. For example, if birds ultimately return to their home territory to mate, then the ‘memory map’ of an old emu comprises an impressive amount of data, extending, perhaps, to hundreds of miles. If remembering where the waterholes are could be converted to anything of political value, Felicity G. Rothschildi would be the Member for your District.
Vote ‘One’ Felicity G. Rothschildi: ‘Little Yellow Flowers for All!!!’[thishasbeenapaidpoliticalannouncementwrittenandspokenbysupremeemu]
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What ARE those little yellow flowers...
Hi ya, Muttsfan,
for us, they are daisies. For the birds here, they are the very first non-grass food that is available in Spring.
It delights me to draw y'all into Wild Bird Perspective. I've been on my hands and knees already, squeezing the seed pods on the grass plants, trying to figure out how long it will be before it's worth the birds' while to start harvesting them. Meanwhile, the daisies are a bounty.
[Anyone know who Demeter was?]
Supreme Emu
for us, they are daisies. For the birds here, they are the very first non-grass food that is available in Spring.
It delights me to draw y'all into Wild Bird Perspective. I've been on my hands and knees already, squeezing the seed pods on the grass plants, trying to figure out how long it will be before it's worth the birds' while to start harvesting them. Meanwhile, the daisies are a bounty.
[Anyone know who Demeter was?]
Supreme Emu
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