Mating-Season in Australia

[Tame Emu Guy]

Brief -- gotta keep cleaning.
Greedy is here, but unwell. Opens her beak as though yawniing or trying to vomit.

S/E/

 

[kathyinmo]

Oh, poor poor Greedy. Fingers crossed that she recovers.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

(a) the serious stuff above, (b) how ill Greedy was just hours ago . . .

I think that Greedy will live; and already an interesting and fabulously subtle dynamic seems to be underway. [Scrub wall; observe; sweep floor; observe.]

Now, try for a moment, readers, to see it from Felicity’s perspective. Suddenly, her arch rival is cowering in the gums on the edge of the clearing. 'Yay,' she thinks, 'Go, me!!'

But wait . . .

Greedy has been far from well, but still, several times, she has entered into conflict. Down but not out. At noon today, she started eating almost heartily, and looking less ill. Then she wandered over near Felicity. It seems a minor point, but it’s not.

I wonder how good these birds’ body language is? Our first guess would be: very very good. Just hours before, Felicity was a booming, sideways-walking, maxi-ruff tyrant. But not anymore. At noon-plus-twenty-minutes, I watched a slow-motion un-confrontation. Exquisitely minimalist. Felicity was un-aggressive. Greedy was un-aggressive. Felicity pecked patiently at some wheat. Greedy impinged on Felicity’s Space, then wandered off to rest.

Here’s what’s gonna happen: alarm bells are already sounding in Felicity’s head. She’ll continue to be un-aggressive. Greedy will, over coming days, as she strengthens, serially test Felicity’s authority by impinging on her Space – no booms or ruff-puff, just nonchalant incursion: ‘Oh! You’re an emu! Sorry, I thought you were a stick or a piece of bark!’

Eventually, Felicity will respond – what else can she do? – even though the signals from Greedy augur very poorly. Felicity will challenge Greedy. Greedy will kick Felicity out of the ring in three milli-seconds, and Felicity will then re-enter ‘Greedy Emu’ in the birds-that-can-whup-me column.

Boy Emu is into the Second Quarter. Seems well, but he's definitely slowed down a little.

Supreme Emu

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Wa ha ha! Felicity has found another spot in the gums to sleep. I don’t think she likes Mr. Stickybeak to know where she kips. On the evening after I watched her settle down near the fig tree, she moseyed off into the gums right over the other side of the house-clearing. Then again, last night, she went the same way. So, this morning at dawn, I knew that the long string of medium-ish dawn booms was her.

The wild birds patiently vary their diet. They eat most of their ration of wheat right off the bat, then they graze for a while, then they forage under the lilly pilly tree – if they are powerful birds. If not, they go back to grazing. Here yet again is the power-structure thing. The weaker birds – the ones standing disconsolately in the gums – are, in effect, waiting for a chance to slip in to get better forage. Meanwhile, no grain of wheat is ultimately overlooked (if nothing else, the ring-necked parrots will get it). Later in the day, a bird will return to where the ration was thrown down, and peck up every single grain. It’s an unending ballet of power=food; and long hours of observation makes it quite apparent.

It would be most interesting to know the contents of a wild bird’s stomach for one day. A while ago, I was walking down the back with Greedy. I saw her pick up and then drop a piece of seed pod hardly bigger than a fingernail clipping. Then she picked it up again and swallowed it. We might wonder if the nutritional value of such a morsel even supplied the energy to pick it up and swallow it. (Would someone please tell me the weight of one of your bird’s daily ration. I am interested to know.)

The birds spend hours and hours every day Where Ever the Main Food Source Is. If I seem strangely fixated on that blasted fig tree, it’s because its fruit is a largesse that perhaps spells the difference between success and failure in the mating game – certainly for the males, as it’s the Last Big Feed before winter and The Big Fast of those lucky enough to breed.* The wild birds that have visited recently go straight in under the lilly pilly tree. In late spring, Mr. and Mrs. Eric spend long hours coming and going to and from the various plum trees. They aren’t stupid: the flying birds tend to drop fruit as they sample the ripe stuff, and I’ve seen Mr. and Mrs. make a bee line for the plum tree upon hearing a flock of ring-necked parrots alight in it. Indeed, they sometimes just stand motionless beneath the tree, waiting for the plums to fall.

Clearly the wild birds aren’t starving. I can’t distinguish them by weight from my birds. Nevertheless, two teacups of wheat per bird per day, and as much as several double handfuls of lilly pillies (knocked down with a pole), or a dozen or more plums – not to mention the excellent ‘pick’ of the house-clearing itself – is the mainspring of the dynamic whereby the house-clearing birds are the alpha-alpha birds: they can ‘hold’ the clearing, where the goodies are, and because they get those goodies, they are well-fed enough to . . . hold the house-clearing, and get those goodies.

Greedy is here (absent evenings; present days). She is not doing the pseudo-vomiting thing, but she’s clearly still a most unwell bird.

*As an experiment, I have tested the upper limits of an emu’s readiness to eat figs. Two teacups of wheat is as much as a bird can eat at a sitting; but – and bear in mind, boys and girls, that figs cost a buck fifty a pop at Le Trendoid Department Store – I have heaved figs down Greedy’s gullet until my arm got tired, and she never even slowed down.

Supreme Emu

 

[Raptor65]

We don't have figs here, but Gerry is the same with dandelion leaves, he'll eat them to no end if you offer it to him. But on his own though the dandelion leaves are just casually plucked from the grass.

He did decide to eat a used cleaning patch from my musket earlier too, at least I think he did. I didn't see him actually do it but I heard the cleaning rod get dropped and the patch was gone when I turned around. Having gotten some black powder in my mouth before while tearing open paper cartridges with my teeth more than a few times I can say it can't have tasted very good, a bit like sour charcoal. Strange bird, he'll throw an overly dramatic gagging fit if you offer him a nice ripe strawberry but a nasty black wad of soggy fabric is good stuff.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Raptor65, is Gerry full grown? How much does he eat in a day?

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Wait!! Supreme Emu has failed his arithmetic test: got hectares and acres back to front. So, my place is about 1,200 acres.

I had cause to sneak onto another gum plantation today. Lots and lots of blessings. What an odd accidental experiment! If the fences of such a place – anything from 1,200 to about 4,000 acres – are sound (sometimes yes, sometimes no), then we have a reality whereby some group of random emus finds itself permanently fenced off from the rest of the W.A. emu population. On this place, over a decade already.

Hmmm . . .

Supreme Emu

 

[Raptor65]

Raptor65, is Gerry full grown? How much does he eat in a day?

S.E.

I feed him about four times a day, each feeding is about a cup of food so he's well fed and rarely goes hungry like a wild Emu would, so rather than spend most of his time searching for food he wanders around investigating everything with his beak.
He's not quite fully grown either, he's about 3.5 feet/1 meter in height at the top of his head so he's still got a little way to go. Come October he'll probably have added another foot to foot and a half/30-45cm.
Like I expected Gerry's growth sort of plateaued to the point where his overall growth has gradually slowed down as he's matured. When I hatch two more Emus in the coming months I'll have to keep a more detailed record of their growth and chart it.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Wonderful, Raptor65. Thank you for your reply. Are you sure he won’t get much bigger? One year and one metre plus is only just over half way, isn’t it?

Keeping statistics is a great idea!!

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Greedy is perhaps a little better. Ticks or internal injury? Managed to get a fair-sized tick out. I’m coming to hate them. I swear G. knows I’m trying to help. My clumsy frozen fingers pulled out a bunch of chunks of little feathers, and she still kept still.

Inspection this morning. Back later.

Supreme Emu