Mating-Season in Australia

[mbmess2003]

Nope you haven't lost me....have really enjoyed lurking and imagining what it's like as you describe what you observe on the other side of the world from me...two thumbs up!

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

A mate of mine has answered one question: May, June, July, and August is 'the mating-season.’ The actual matings continue over the four months, so a clutch could hatch at the end of October, that is, eight weeks after the last mating of the season.

Forgive me if I seemed to have flown off on tekerlodjikerl tangents. The more I observe, the less I understand, and the more interested I become. I am dismayed at the number of things that I just haven’t paid attention to. For example, this ‘range thing’ – how far do birds travel to get what quality of food? – is fascinating. Pop up and find the picture of the grassy glade at dusk. Looks Yummy for (Wild) Emus, doesn’t it? Nup! No blessings at all. What about the bush right beside it, which is gums with little else? Nup! No blessings there either. What about this dam here among the gums? It’s only a hundred yards from the track that the flock uses, but they don’t drink there (no tracks). So, I’ll take a deep breath, and keep quietly trying to work this one out.

Mohawk is here for a fourth morning, grazing just feet away from my birds. It doesn’t seem to be a romance thing, so why do they tolerate him?

One thing I’ve noticed (I think . . . ) is that the pairs of birds I see on the Net often seem so similar. Is that because the eggs that the owners incubated came from the same male and female? But ahh!! in the wild, there would likely be a mixture of genes in the chicks of a single clutch!! Lots and lots of observation to be done here, guys – just step outside my back door, and see how different looking the three birds out the back are.

Wait, we’re going live:

[But first a bit in brackets. I’m back. My fingers are so cold I can’t type properly. Is it possible that ‘Mohawk’ is actually the male that Felicity brought with her when she came back – ‘Foxtrot Charlie’? I didn’t get a look at F.C. This will make sense in a minute.]

Down the back, there’s a mosaic of environments.* First a strip of gums. Then a strip of bush. Then gums. Then bush. I went down to listen to a wild female that’s about a hundred yards away, down in the strip of bush behind the first strip of gums. It’s clearly some sort of ‘staging-point’ where my birds can meet wild birds on neutral ground.

It’s hard work, boys and girls!! There was frost on the ground around the cushion I was kneeling on – but there was a wild bird vocalising less than fifty yards in front of me. Sight and sound are such different instruments!! If the birds are in the open, you can see and hear them. If you are still, and they are vocalising, you have a chance of spotting them, though you may need to sit stock still for a half an hour to do so. If you can’t see them, and they don’t vocalise, and you move . . . game over.

So, it seemed that Greedy was away as I went down to try to observe the wild female. I kneeled and watched, then moved a bit. The wild bird spotted me (a lovely tall dark bird), and zipped through the screen of gums, down to the next clearing – I knew that because she started quietly calling again a few minutes later.

Then . . . Felicity and ‘Mohawk’ came past, obviously going to meet the female (!??).

Then I noticed Greedy standing quietly in the bush off to one side. I suppose it’s fair to assume that this is still mating-season goings-on.

[Two magpies were so busy fighting that they forgot to fly, and fell twenty five feet or more, squabbling furiously in mid-air, right in front of me, until the looming ground brought them back to their senses.]

Where was I? Oh yes, how different the birds are. Well, Mrs Eric, for example, has got to be a full six or eight inches taller than ‘Mohawk.’ The twins that I posted photos of at the beginning of the season were not only identical with a capital 'i,' they looked like they were about to step out onto the red carpet at The Big Film Premiere: beautiful symmetrical patterns, and every feather in place. ‘Mohawk,’ meanwhile, looks like an explosion in a feather factory with legs on. He could almost be a different sub-species!
What I mean is: am I seeing a gloriously broad range of genetic influences that are perhaps not present in the flocks of breeders?
[Conversely, all the birds here are necessarily rothschildi, whereas breeders may unwittingly have birds from different sub-species. I would be ecstatic to see a photo from a breeder who reckons that two birds in his/her flock are identifiably different sub-species!!]

*That’s why I posted the two pictures of side-by-side environments yesterday. Captive birds have, by and large, one environment. Theoretical pre-European-era emus had a range of environments, and/but:

we just can’t overstate, readers, how fantastically the environment here has changed since European settlement.

This has everything to do with me reaching helpful conclusions for BYC denizens, because this ‘third environment’ – my environment – is vestigial. That is, bizarrely, it’s not necessarily representative of the environment in which the species here evolved.

Supreme Emu

 

[chickenzoo]

Enjoying the pics S.E. .....especially the strange plant shapes.
I was thinking of some of my emu interactions.
Merlin n Doodlebug are a pair. Henry is a lone male. Pumba is Doodlebugs daughter from two years ago. Zip n Tamona are this years chicks.
Merlin hates Henry. The one seven acre pasture is not enough property to keep him from chasing poor Henry....but Henry is not innocent... he often provokes Merlin or trys to boss the chicks around which really gets Merlin going. Doodlebug dislikes Henry during breeding season but will put up with him around most other times. I raised Tamona n Zip but Merlin seems to know they are his...he did sit on them as eggs. Merlin will chase off Pumba near breeding season but now is tolerant of her. Henry bosses Pumba but is not aggressive towards her but for some reason both older males will bite at everyone's under eyelids.....don't know why. Henry will boss the chicks about and will often walk up behind them and hiss then lift up a foot and part push part stomp downward to get them moving but he doesn't really chase them. Henry tolerates Doodlebug but bites her if she takes his food.
Its funny because some of my chickens have control of the emu as well as the peafowl and turkey. The emu will chase the guiena and ducks when they get excited. The emu will also run behind the horses or anything else that gets running. That really excites them. Even cars going down the dirt road are raced by the emu.
When Henry sees me he will get excited and strut. He pulls up his body in a stately carriage,arches his head and neck as if to say.."I'm bad"....look at me. Pumba will also but she sways her airbag around. Merlin only struts at me during breeding season....
When they get upset at each other I hear a lot of beak snapping.before one takes off.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hi, E.H. I find every bit of your posts helpful. ‘Ahh,’ I think, ‘they do such and such!

Merlin seems to know which chicks are his? How interesting!

Their behaviour changes in and out of mating-season? How interesting!

And running around after non-emu life-forms? I only have the emus, but they certainly do seem to ‘spark one another off.’ The spazzy dances are a good example: one spazzydance; all spazzydance.

I gotta think about ‘beak snapping.’ I don’t hear it.

Doodlebug dislike Henry during mating-season?! Hmmm . . .

Finally, I think your knowledge of basic behaviours – strutting and vocalising etc. – is far far better than mine. If only we could produce a sort of dictionary with pictures/ snippets of footage! Certainly it would include all basic vocalisations.

S.E.

 

[chickenzoo]

If I can ever figure out how to post video on here we'd have a ton. I have all kinds of animals the emu interact with on a daily basis.... horses and mini horses...mini cattle...lamas n alpaca...... peafowl....turkey...geese....cranes..... chickens....Guinea fowl.....swan.....dogs and cats...
Its funny to watch the emu plop down in the pond....they insist on landing on one of the swans...which is met by swan bites and evil looks. They often treat the other animals like other emu. My favorite emu Jazzy that passed away...he use to try and romance the mini horses.... lol

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Forget what I wrote about tracks on the edge of dams. We’ve had too much rain to expect tracks. Forget everything about this morning’s observations except: my birds and guest were called by, and left with, a wild female. Beyond that . . . ?

Fabulous day!!

Supreme Avian Detective​

Okay, let’s forget actual physical emus for a minute, and go looking – at Oudman’s today – for physical signs of emus, signs that tell us anything about their lifestyle. Although genuinely surprised by how few signs I found, it was a great exercise; and I came away with a sense – which we shall develop together – of birds who aren’t . . .

. . . although I love all your captive birds, they don’t live . . . on the edge. These birds do. For example, an incubated chick never in its life moves over long distances in disciplined formation, at 24/7 risk from predators.

These birds never do anything else

,which is why they are so very good at avoiding that clumsy Supreme Emu as he clomps about trying to observe them. That's why every observation of a wild-bird-that-can’t-see me is sweet to me.

Picture One (below): truly rooly wild emu footprint. It’s the only one I found in four hours of walking – I had underestimated the rain.


Picture Two: ‘kay, guys, we’ve traipsed from my place to the back of Oudman’s; snuck over the fence; and walked the fence line down to the back of the glade that I showed you yesterday. What I want to see here is: on the right is a substantial patch of scrub. Okay – but can you see the tree tops further back to the left? That’s an island of scrub in a sea of plantation blue-gums.
I’m sure enough that wild birds don’t ‘live’ in the rows of gums as such – but little islands of scrub like this are almost literally ‘off the map.’ Those clumsy humans never get off the tracks that run through the plantations. No one walks through this country (except Supreme Emu). There’s precious little to eat in these patches; but if you were a male looking to nest, it would be a great spot: undisturbed, high ground, about the right density of surrounding bush.
Note that just a mile south of here is that awesomely large chunk of green that you saw when you googled my place – National Park all the way to the coast.





Picture Three: this is the same glade, from another angle. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it!


Picture Four: it’s sixty miles, as the crow flies, to the coast. There is certainly an abundance of emu food out there, but there are a lot of gums between the abundance!
Conversely, look at how lush the grass in the old sheep-yards is. Birds are either scooting through the missing panel, or outright jumping the fence to get to this grass. See what I mean about lush grass and alpha birds?






Picture Five: some of the ‘islands’ in the plantation gums are scrub, some are charming little sunlit glades. They have little to do with our tour, but they are fine places to lie and read in the spring sunshine.





Picture Six: back to work. We have more pieces to fit together. This is a kangaroo sneakin’-under-the-fence spot. My mate Ken assures me that emus don’t schmooze under fences. They punch their way through, or ‘surf’ over. Look at the fence post on the left. You can see how it has been dragged back and forth by the regular passage of the roos.





Picture Seven: and here’s how we know it’s roos not emus: you can just see on S.E.’s fingers the roo fur that was wrapped about the bottom wire.



Picture Eight: now, remember my guess that these birds were coming and going from the ‘back’ of Oudman’s, and that they must be crossing the fence somewhere ‘down behind’ the clearing on which we have been observing them? Well, I am pretty sure I was basically right. The kangaroo crossing-spot in the picture is ‘down the back.’ The roos clearly cross the fence -- a mile of sound fence – here; and so do the emus. The photos show the feathers in the wire (S.E.’s assistant has held his shirt up to show up the feather). The next panel of that fence – about a fifteen-foot section – had seventeen bits of feathers on the barbs.










Picture Nine: this is a sort of ‘step aside’ from the above. I think we can assume that the daily movement of the wild birds is from and to and around and back to base. (My birds are an exception. They don’t migrate to seek food.) So, look at this charming little scene, the edge of a dam. The grass is good. The water is sweet. Do birds hang out here? No. Why not? Well . . . I think . . . it’s not on the way to or from anywhere. It’s sort of marooned in a great featureless chunk of blue gums.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Picture Ten: we’re on our way home now, slicing across the Oudman Plantation toward my place. Can you see it? It’s a track. The bush is full of them. Mostly it’s the roos that use them, but the emus use this one – how do we know? Lots of blessings on it.



Picture Eleven: I need a better camera.
The bigger the roos are, the less afraid they are. I had a big big boomer stand and merely look at me one morning down by the Frankland River. They are herbivores, so they are not scary; but they are big. Can you see him? He’s much closer than he looks, and I watched him for a minute through the binos – big! Great winter coat.
Prehistorically, I suppose a dingo would be the only thing game enough to have a crack at him – but not this dingo! Their talon is as large as an emu’s, and they are just as handy with it.



Supreme Emu

 

[Farmerboy16]

Very nice! Loved all the pictures and observations!

 

[Ashburnham]

Keep up the good work mate! Very interesting.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Mohawk is still here.

I shall tackle the garden today and tomorrow; but I want to try a little experiment: to observe at length the interactions between the two resident birds and the visitor, in the hope of figuring out The Mating-Season Thing. I think I just missed an episode a minute ago: all three birds came together, and ruffs were raised and . . . I couldn’t see them ‘cause a tree got in the way.

Definitions: six categories:

One: commercially-raised birds (captive birds that are unloved)
Two: captive birds that are loved
Three: feral birds (escaped from emu farms that are not in Australia)
Four: tame birds (like mine)
Five: wild birds (here in Oz now)
Six: theoretical historical wild birds (that is, pre-European-settlement)

So, for instance, it’s fair for U.S. readers to think, ‘Cool, this guy has emus, and he’s in Australia, so his emus are ‘really real’!! But I’m learning by the day.
For example, we read that emus migrate. Who did the studies? How do you measure a migration? To what degree does the presence and behaviour of the human involved affect the data? I mean, gee! two teacups of wheat a day transforms a wild bird into a semi-captive bird!

[Anything in brackets is optional. That’s what brackets mean. The quality of the information in our lives is a great interest of mine, coming from my profession, etc. I have no axe to grind here, but This Stuff is so immediate and obvious and relevant to me.
A tiny ‘for instance’: look for info on emu sub-species. You’ll find a paragraph on the three extant sub-species. Okay, task accomplished – but wait! Keep looking! (I have been.) After a while, something becomes apparent: the one paragraph, without its original academic reference, keeps turning up again and again. It’s the same paragraph, and it has been slung across the Internet by people who are perhaps too busy or partial to even think about whether the info is . . . ummm . . . accurate . . .

My point? It’s appropriate to be discerning. I caught myself typing, ‘I’d be pleased if someone said [on the basis of a Supreme Emu Observation], “Well, a wild bird would . . .” ‘ But wait a minute!! My birds aren’t ‘wild’ and neither even, in a way, are the birds at Oudman’s . . .]

S.E.