EMU sounds

[Ellamumu]

Well almost to the day of her first birthday, Ella has started grunting, what a funny sound, she starts her morning squeaks and they turn into grunts. I think she surprises herself! LOL

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hey, Ellamumu.


Don’t be shy about having a small 'study project' with your birds, even if you just pin in up a bit of paper, and start recording things: cheeping, whistling, phases of plumage, etc. etc.

You’d be just amazed at how much info has yet to be gathered!!

S.E.

 

[yinepu]

Has anyone else noticed a difference between the grunts of a male and a female?

my boy Dorian has been grunting like a pot belly pig
Rose started grunting a few weeks ago..her's sounds more like a giant frog croaking.. She also grunts a lot more than he does since she figured out how to...

poor Paco (my other oldest bird) still hasn't made a single grunt that I know of.. so he's still like the younger birds in that respect

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Yinepu, don’t know; but I am enthusiastic to post this text:

S.E. reckons emus understand at least twenty or thirty calls/variations of calls. His rough list includes:

Chicks’ cheeps: calls to locate dad, which come in degrees of stress. (Chicks’ whistles??)

Dad: a grunt to answer the chicks, and a grunt that tells them ‘Follow me.’

General alarm

Calls that signal status/warn off other birds

Hisses that are parts of the ‘rush-flare-hiss’ action

‘kook kook kook’s that guide a flock through the bush. S.E. has heard a flock of eighteen pass through scrub, and they communicated at length among themselves as they moved.

Similar calls that a female uses to ‘direct’ a male. I have seen Felicity do this a number of times, and you’d swear the male in question was on a length of rope. F. uses these when she’s calling a new consort to come and share wheat.

Calls that advertise interest in mating, including the fantastic pre-dawn calls whereby males and females ‘make appointments’ to meet after dawn. I’m not kidding. This is a no-brainer.

Calls between males and females, to make appointments during the day.

Females’ night-time strings of booms in mating-season: there are at least ‘single’ and ‘double’ booms. Strings vary from six to twenty booms per string. They vary in the lengths of time between the strings. They vary in volume, and in nature also: sometimes the birds sound almost asleep.

Females’ ‘vocal reconnaissance’ – I think this warns birds nearby. Females do this while mobile. Or are they signalling males??

Females’ ‘territory-marking’ strings of booms: an elaborate inter-female series of booms. They do this while stationary, in the morning. They are exchanged between females as much as a half a mile away

Going-beddy-byes-at-dusk grunts to themselves – emus talk to themselves!

Finally, guys: the wild birds, when in groups of six or eight, while in conflict, may vocalise a hundred times an hour. That is, they talk back and forth constantly for quite long periods, and over quite large areas.


S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Yinepu, found this while hunting for a detail on Mating-Season in Australia. 'B.E.' is a male.

'I slip out to ‘look/listen for patterns.’ B.E. does exactly the same thing as yesterday: a few quiet guurrkks. Then a string of really spirited gurks, with the swan-neck thing, which almost get down to the boom-ey bass of the female call. I sit and listen. A couple of minutes later, a female calls quietly, just once, down the back.

S.E.

 

[yinepu]

Yinepu, don’t know; but I am enthusiastic to post this text:

S.E. reckons emus understand at least twenty or thirty calls/variations of calls. His rough list includes:

Chicks’ cheeps: calls to locate dad, which come in degrees of stress. (Chicks’ whistles??)

Dad: a grunt to answer the chicks, and a grunt that tells them ‘Follow me.’

General alarm

Calls that signal status/warn off other birds

Hisses that are parts of the ‘rush-flare-hiss’ action

‘kook kook kook’s that guide a flock through the bush. S.E. has heard a flock of eighteen pass through scrub, and they communicated at length among themselves as they moved.

Similar calls that a female uses to ‘direct’ a male. I have seen Felicity do this a number of times, and you’d swear the male in question was on a length of rope. F. uses these when she’s calling a new consort to come and share wheat.

Calls that advertise interest in mating, including the fantastic pre-dawn calls whereby males and females ‘make appointments’ to meet after dawn. I’m not kidding. This is a no-brainer.

Calls between males and females, to make appointments during the day.

Females’ night-time strings of booms in mating-season: there are at least ‘single’ and ‘double’ booms. Strings vary from six to twenty booms per string. They vary in the lengths of time between the strings. They vary in volume, and in nature also: sometimes the birds sound almost asleep.

Females’ ‘vocal reconnaissance’ – I think this warns birds nearby. Females do this while mobile. Or are they signalling males??

Females’ ‘territory-marking’ strings of booms: an elaborate inter-female series of booms. They do this while stationary, in the morning. They are exchanged between females as much as a half a mile away

Going-beddy-byes-at-dusk grunts to themselves – emus talk to themselves!

Finally, guys: the wild birds, when in groups of six or eight, while in conflict, may vocalise a hundred times an hour. That is, they talk back and forth constantly for quite long periods, and over quite large areas.


S.E.

Yinepu, found this while hunting for a detail on Mating-Season in Australia. 'B.E.' is a male.

'I slip out to ‘look/listen for patterns.’ B.E. does exactly the same thing as yesterday: a few quiet guurrkks. Then a string of really spirited gurks, with the swan-neck thing, which almost get down to the boom-ey bass of the female call. I sit and listen. A couple of minutes later, a female calls quietly, just once, down the back.

S.E.

Interesting..

I'll have to pay a lot more attention to mine when breeding season comes around

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Yinepu, I look forward to your observations.

It seems that Paying Attention reaps great rewards.

[Felicity here yesterday with Noddy and a yearling, and all three schmoozing with two other wild pairs (and Alpha Chick). That's eight emus all together.]

Supreme Emu

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Yinepu, I’m listening on your behalf:

heard a male – grunts: definitely male – talking to a female here. The male’s grunts were really similar to a ‘string’ of female booms. Yes, they were grunts, but deep, almost as deep as booms, and in strings.

S.E.

 

[yinepu]

Yinepu, I’m listening on your behalf:

heard a male – grunts: definitely male – talking to a female here. The male’s grunts were really similar to a ‘string’ of female booms. Yes, they were grunts, but deep, almost as deep as booms, and in strings.

S.E.

that makes sense.. when Dorian grunts his are a string of grunts.. like a pot belly pig grumbling

But when Rose grunts.. it's a single grunt.. more like a frog croak

 

[hen house girl]

Can a male make that booming noise that sounds like a car with base? I have a lady telling me that the emu she gave me was a male because the owner before her had him DNA tested, but I have never heard him grunt ever, nor has she. This emu always makes two types of drumming noise, one is like a car base, and the other is like a drum