Mating-Season in Australia

[Tame Emu Guy]

See Supreme Emu ‘observing.’
See Supreme Emu gliding soundlessly across the emerald-green moss.
See Supreme Emu sink to the ground upon hearing the call of The Elusive Wild Emu.

See Supreme Emu realise that it’s Felicity, standing twenty feet behind him, followed him a quarter of a mile from the farmhouse, hoping he had something Yummy for Emus.

Then – I am working hard to get some good new observations – Felicity obliged by vocalising for a half an hour. Impatience is my weakness, so I thought it was a triumph to sit in an adjacent aisle, out of line of sight, certain that Felicity’s booming would allow me to track her. Well, she outsmarted me by booming at regular intervals, then just . . . gone.

I think she’s trying to contact other (male?) emus. Why else would she be moving and booming, over a half an hour, in a featureless block of gum trees? It may or may not be breeding-season behaviour. My point is that I don’t think it’s hostile: she’s not threatening other birds or ‘marking out’ territory.

Now, these are preliminary preliminary thoughts – please wade in with your opinions. My point is: could the ‘vocal reconnaissance’ – which seems to sound exactly the same – be a quite different thing? specifically, a warning to birds in the vicinity of her turf? What I observed today was moving-booming-moving-booming while away from the clearing. I've described this above.

In the other case -- 'vocal reconnaissance' -- it’s the boom-eagle eyes-boom-eagle eyes thing, while the bird stands smack bang in the middle of her turf. Both F. and G. do this.

And F. talks to herself!! My observations are just about sufficient on this one. In deep deep dusk, as she drifts off to beddy byes in the gums, she makes tiny little I’m-a-happy-camper noises to herself.

Again, Greedy absent in the evening. My observation about health versus Queen of the Clearing is essentially true. Felicity is still dominant -- but she sho' ain't pushin' her luck. Greedy is eating more.

Supreme Emu

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Excursion to The Oudman Plantation!!​

First time ever observing beyond my place! It’s laid out differently, guys – still a plantation, but the trees are further apart, so you can see through them: more like a screen than a wall. Never have I been so patient, moving and observing, moving and observing. At one point, while sitting, two kangaroos stopped to look at me. I paced out the distance: twenty feet.

Then the sun began to shine, and I stopped feeling cold and a weensy bit miserable. My position was only fair: looking through the screen of trees, down onto a clearing. Finally, I saw a familiar outline: two birds were grazing in the clearing. It was too windy to hear if they vocalised. At that point, though, it began to rain, and I decided to leave.

Having stood up, I stepped out into the clearing, and scared the daylights out of a male and two chicks that had been grazing much closer than the pair, but had been obscured by the trees. Next time, I will get closer to the clearing. Perhaps we’ll get fewer observations that way, but we want to be close enough to hear and see well. (There’s an old shearing-shed there. I wonder if I could make a ‘hide’?)

Blundered on another pair of birds on the way home, on the plantation beside my place.

There seems to be almost literally no food except grass for the birds on Oudman’s. I had a good look at a few blessings: absolute pure mushed grass, with an entirely inoffensive odour, rather like compost. Is the lack of dietary variety bad?

The fence is half-down in one spot I saw, and may be elsewhere, so the birds aren’t genetically marooned; but I still think it’s an interesting notion that a group of birds is effectively isolated -- ten years on 1,000 acres? Something like that.

As much fun as it's been, this thread will end the day the last chick hatches. Meanwhile, I’ll try to get further afield, and get data from a variety of sources. Each excursion, if I’m lucky, and I can get into a good position, and the sun shines, is tremendous fun; and a part of the fun is knowing that all the BYC oeople are along for the ride. There are times when I think more technology would be appropriate. I suspect readers would be thrilled to see footage of wild birds grazing in the sunshine. (I did think of setting up a ‘emu-cam’ down at the corridor. Over a week or so, you’d undoubtedly get good footage of birds.)


Send any ideas you have for ‘projects.’


For example, I will take Felicity or Greedy into the bush, and try to observe just what they eat. When they were chicks, we did regularly go for walks, but I didn’t pay enough attention to what they ate. (They were ‘wheat-powered’: you get about three miles per chick per teacup of wheat. It was great to see how absolutely at home they felt: all the bush is their home.)

Only Greedy came for breakfast. She is clearly getting slowly better. Felicity came a while ago. Boy Emu is okay.

Supreme Emu

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hmmm . . . now that I think about it, maybe emus around here would try to get onto a gum plantation simply because that’s where the pastures are. Emus eat lots of stuff besides grass, but they like grass best (or to put it another way, good long grass allows them to ingest more in a given period than they could while grazing elsewhere.). I even now realise that I see them grazing on the areas of the pastures where the grass is thickest. So, this morning’s Fabulous Philosophy is: emus really like grass!!

G. and F. both here. I saw Greedy do a little poop into long cold wet grass. I couldn’t find it in order to examine it; but, seeing it exit, it wasn’t at all a healthy-lookin’ poop. She is still far from well, and I’m still very worried about her.

Now, who confesses that they’d forgotten all about Eric and Mrs Eric? Come on, ‘fess up! E. and Mrs. E aren’t quite ‘here emus.’ My birds are. The clearing here is the centre of their world. They grew up under the fig tree. But for Eric and Mrs. Eric, the clearing is peripheral. Recall that the only other mating we’ve observed was Eric and Mrs. Eric. So, it may well be that Eric is also, right now, sitting on eggs – I just have no idea where to look – and could turn up in three or four months with a clutch of chicks. Eric is the only emu we know to have bred successfully.

Supreme Emu

 

[Raptor65]

How would you describe wild Emu poop anyway? When the splat marks on the concrete aren't present due to having been washed away people ask me what kind of a mess Gerry leaves and I always describe it as 'Pea soup' both in color and consistency.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Well, Raptor65, how does one describe emu poop? I'm so very glad you've asked!

ahem,

ahem;

the poop of a healthy wild emu is very like the soft-serve ice cream that comes out of the dispenser, often complete with the little 'peak' on the top.

[I have a long-standing joke with my niece. Every year, for Christmas, she gets something outstandingly useless and odd, often something from the Goodwill shop what it is I don't even know the function of. This year, Josephine was almost certainly the only teenager on this planet to receive a plastic-coated emu-poo paperweight for christmas. The poo in question was the archetype of this 'soft-serve swirl' type.]

It should have that little bit of white on top. The smell, in all seriousness, ratite-lovers, should be entirely neutral, as I said, like compost, iinoffensive.

Supreme Emu

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

They knew I was there.
I knew they were there – they’d jogged through the gums in front of me.

We’re back at the Oudman’s, and I’ve come in ‘around the back,’ in a great arc, intending to come up to the clearing from the far side. City folk would pay to sit in a spot like this. Long aisles of grass like lawn run between rows of gums thin enough to let the sun through – and quiet, quiet, quiet.

I had just spotted a landmark, the shed near the old house, when I heard a female call about a hundred and fifty feet in front of me. I sank to the ground. It was a simple matter of patience. She called four times over nearly a half an hour as I scanned and scanned and scanned the gums before me. Eventually, I decided to move on.

Two minutes later, I heard males (?) calling, and sank again to the grass again. This time I was there even longer. Four pairs of adult legs had jogged through the gums in front of me. (I could see the legs under the gums, but not any more.) Then they stopped. I couldn’t see them. They called. I scanned. They called. I scanned.

I didn’t learn much today, but it was fascinating to be in that position, with wild birds in an arc of several hundred feet across my front. They were closer than two hundred feet, within an area of, say, four or five tennis courts – but could I actually see them? Eventually – if you have the stamina and patience, let them come to you – they moved, and I spotted them. I heard a call that I think was new to me, but I’ll wait to see if I hear it again. I only got a good look at two of the birds: big birds with really good coats.

Then I saw – I swear this it true; I saw most of it clearly enough – the other two birds had a little squabble with some kangaroos. There were six or eight roos, and the roos and emus were only ten or fifteen feet apart. One of the emus made a little rush at a roo, and they all hopped off. (I’ve seen Greedy chase a kangaroo.)

By this time, I was cold and exhausted. I scored a pocketful of lemons from the tree behind the old house, and walked home . . .

. . . but coming down the drive here at my place, I saw this – you tell me: a bird was coming up the drive. It was Greedy. I said hello. We walked together down past the aisle where B.E. is. Greedy turned back. I kept walking, wondering if she was up to something. Then she raised her ruff, and advanced into B.E.’s aisle (I think, or very close to it); and Felicity came bolting out. So, what was that about? Felicity is still top dog (though her days are numbered. Greedy ate heartily this evening), so it’s significant that Greedy was prepared, in her weakened state, to confront Felicity.

Supreme Emu

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Truth to tell, most Australians, including me, wouldn’t know what a real winter was if it fell out of the sky on their head. There are places in this state that get to 105 degrees in spring, However, Rocky Gully gets fairly cold. There was ice on the lawn yesterday morning.
So, if Boy Emu weighs roughly 75 pounds, and he loses, say, 20 pounds in weight over 60 days, that’s a third of a pound a day to fuel him, and to keep warm a chunk of cold cold Mother Earth. It’s an impressive equation. We’ll all chip in buy him a slice of chocolate mud cake the day the last chick hatches. Meanwhile, though, I want to watch him for longer periods, to see just how often he turns the eggs. I’ve only seen him do it once so far.

Supreme Emu

 

[chickenzoo]

I know on average they say a emu runs about 125 lbs. I'm sure my male lost some weight while sitting, but it wasn't really noticeable. I have read they store fat in their back.... I guess on an emu there aren't too many other places to put it...lol. He would sit up on his "knees" and move eggs around, pick throu the nest, then plunk back down. The further along incubation, the less I saw him move about.... Went into a trance like state. But still aware of everything. He was very patient with me removing eggs, inspecting them and pushing them back under him.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Internet statistics on the emu drive me up the wall. They just don’t seem to be correct. An article stated that males lose up to one third of their weight while sitting.

What intrigues me, Emu Hugger, is the fantastic efficiency of that fat as fuel. If a male doesn’t lose that much weight during his sit, then the efficiency is all the greater – imagine seeing a block of emu fat sitting on a table, and knowing that that block can both keep the bird alive for sixty days, and heat the chunk of winter earth the bird is sitting on.

Ah, yes!! 'Trance-like state'! That makes perfect sense. I observed B.E. yesterday. He didn't scratch himself. He didn't peck at sticks. He did maintain his alertness, his regime of looking about.

I sure would be fun to be able to observe B.E. from very close; but I suppose the point of the exercise here is to see how wild birds do behave.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hmm . . . what I hear is:

the females boom at night, irregularly. At dawn -- that is, very very early dawn -- other emus may start calling back. Let’s assume that those Other Emus are male. A real ‘chatter’ ensues. It’s quite clear that two-way communication is going on.
Now here’s the interesting bit: if this chatter is audible at my place at that time, foreign males will probably turn up under the lilly pilly tree within a hour of dawn. So, I think that the females are figuring out who is where in the bush, and organising meetings.

I walked the two miles to the river before dawn yesterday morning (hitching to town). The dynamic above was already audible here at the farmhouse when I left: one of my birds calling, wild males answering, and from quite close, under two hundred yards.

[There are two slightly different types of booms. The first is the regular ‘paced’ boom: ‘boom boom boom boom.’ The second is when the booms start bubbling up over one another, and you get: ‘boom boom boomboom boomboom.’ I think this second happens when the female is more interested.]

About eight hundred yards down the road, I heard another female booming in the scrub. Just short of the river, I sat to listen. Still well before sunrise. Over a half an hour, I heard two more of these ‘conversations’ between a female and a wild male(s), one on either side of me. One was so close that the bird might have been visible in better light.

So, we traversed a two-mile strip of scrub (with my farmhouse at one end and the river at the other). In four places along that strip, at dawn, females were booming (all at medium levels); and three of those females were chattering with nearby male(s).

Supreme Emu