Fine Dark Wild Emu . . . and Scruffy Chick

[briefvisit]

As always, the photo is awful; but this is one of the finest wild emus I've ever seen: fine shiny plumage. A little skinny -- likely young. Dark. A fine gait. The plumage is perfect.

 

[briefvisit]

Notes on Scruffy Chick

I find chicks at this age, just over a year, the most interesting of all. This chick is an un-named member of Eric’s clutch, now independent, but found its way back here for spring – we had three, now five; three more are still away.

Some have identifiable personalities; and if you are lucky, some identifying characteristic -- one of Eric's orphans had a most distinct bump on its nose. I named it 'Das Beakie Cheeper,' and it's remarkably assertive.


They look scruffy because their second spring is rather rough and tumble: still frosts at night, wicked spring storms and high daytime winds. They are now experienced enough to go swimming on their own, to get in under the lilly pilly tree to scratch around, and to roam long distances as they develop their ‘life memory maps.’


They are still technically ‘black heads’ at this stage. Black-headedness begins in their second season with a break in the pattern on the neck feathers, then the sprouting of toosh feathers. At this stage, they have fine tooshes, and their plumage is close to that of an adult except for the upper neck, which is still ‘black head.’ But it's the not-quite-adult-ness of their plumage that gives them this wonderfully scruffy look -- that and the spring winds.

They have lost all the fatty-bottom-waddle-ness of their youth, and have fine fast gaits – indeed, more handsome than the adults.


And for the record: these five ‘resident’ chicks (formal observations here are long finished; this is just haphazard stuff) are splendid subjects for observation. They will come close – several will eat from my hand – and they ARE hangin’ out at the house-clearing, where they receive a little wheat.


However, beyond that, if you come and stay, you can follow these birds all day long, to watch them through binos. They usually disappear, with ‘Auntie Uno Chick,’ for hours each day. Thus they probably graze on three or four pastures up to a mile or even two from the house. Binos allow observation of the variety of food they eat. And it’s also valid to watch them from a distance, even up to a half a mile (which I often did over at Coffey’s), which gives you a chance of seeing them interact with other wild emus. It’s always fun when you bump into one of ‘your’ birds at a distance from the clearing.


Watching such a group over several weeks – leaving each morning from the clearing here – would be extremely difficult if not impossible in the wild. And although of course their interaction with me skews the data somewhat (all interaction with humans skews the data . . . ), you’d still get an extremely good insight into the general daily movement patterns of wild emus. If you were hard core, you could document them going to roost one evening, and return pre-dawn to photograph them emerging onto their ‘morning’ pasture, and perhaps even spazzy dancing. (If you are prepared to get up early enough, it’s not actually hard to witness spazzy dancing. I sometimes saw Alpha and Omega do it two or three mornings in a row duing mid-summer.)