Mating-Season in Australia

[chickenzoo]

Oh no.... I hope she gets better. Not another tick?

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hi, ya, Emu Hugger. No ticks visible. Could there be some beneath her feathers? Why not? Before I logged on, I’d already written’:

‘Perhaps I was fooled because what I saw was G. and F. fighting. This is ‘nature red in tooth and claw’ stuff. Greedy will either get well, and re-gain her mantle, or be dead within in a week.’

This is ‘The Thing,’ readers: I’m miles from anywhere, and too poor to fly vets in by helicopter. I don’t think that I’ve yet mentioned here on BYC that I’ve lost two other chicks. In brief: the score, out of five chicks, is two known dead, one I’m not sure about, and a runt spinster – Greedy is the fifth, and she’s only alive because, when she was injured as a chick, I just managed to save her from the others. On both occasions – when Greedy and Number One were injured – their siblings tried to kill them on the spot.

At times, I feel almost histrionic, focussing on detail detail detail; but it’s exactly what I see. For example, I have mentioned the pressure-cooker atmosphere here in the clearing. Would ‘my’ birds have done better if they’d hatched elsewhere? I don’t mean this is at all in a soppy way, but in respects of trying to understand. Captive birds live at least twice as long as wild birds, so ‘wildness plus wheat’ doesn’t seem like such a bad combination . . . except for the pressure-cooker thing . . .

Speaking of which: I’ve decided not to tame Boy Emu’s chicks, not to feed them at all. Indeed, ideally, he’ll choof off with them in tow. There are five birds of different degrees of tameness ‘in orbit’ here; and if we add, say, four or five more truly-tame chicks, the clearing will be a madhouse.

In closing, it’s worth noting that Greedy didn’t just sidle off into the bush to try to get well, but tackled Felicity for control of the clearing – abundance of food!! That’s why, at the end of the fig season, there’s actually a track worn around the fig trees, a track made by hungry wild emus willing to trespass on other birds’ turf to get something yummier than grass and seeds.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Observing Felicity at Twilight [Greedy didn’t turn up. We wait.]:
I steadfastly watched F. through the binos for about forty-five minutes. After her dinner-wheat, she grazed quietly here and there, until the last sun left the top of the gums around the clearing. It was her ruff that I wanted to observe: if she called, would she raise her ruff? She did eventually utter six or eight of the tiniest gluks, raising her ruff just a tiny bit – perhaps the females can’t vocalise without raising their ruffs? I’m becoming sure that she’s talking to herself. The call wouldn’t be audible much over a hundred feet; and although she maintained the ever-present practice of raising her head every ten seconds or so, and did, on a couple of occasions, look momentarily ‘eagle-eyed,’ she seemed perfectly relaxed. Then, she drifted to almost the same spot as last night. I snuck over to watch. She watched me watching her, and drifted into the next aisle. I shifted. She stood there patiently watching me watching her, until I left.
Last night, it was Greedy only who vocalised – Felicity was on the north side of the house; Greedy on the south. It’s as regular as clockwork: you may hear calls at any time between dusk and dawn, but you’ll hear a string of medium-ish booms at around three a.m.

Now for some fun. Boy Emu is quite clearly visible in this photo – that is, it’s a high-enough-resolution image to render him visible. Let’s see who can find him.
Supreme Emu

 

[chickenzoo]

They are so well camouflaged, arent they. In the woods here i can go around several times before i spot one looking at me like, what ya looking for....lol

 

[Toast n Jelly]

Nope, I can't find him.

 

[chickenzoo]

Look mid way down the big cleared aside way....laying down..

 

[Toast n Jelly]

WoW! Very tricky! That looks like a pathway...Is it likely that other animals may come barreling through?

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Well, Toast n Jelly, no . . . the gum plantations are massive blocks of a single species, and they constitute pretty much a leafy desert. There is no thriving biosystem in them.

Secondly, the kangaroos and emus are the only critters of any size in Oz. The dingoes are all gone. Foxes are pretty small (but there are plenty of them, and they prey on chicks). The wombat grows as big as a dog, but they're rare around here. Oz doesn't have the range of critters that, for example, Africa or the Americas have. [Look up 'Wallace Line.'] The kangaroos are everywhere, but they aren't at loggerheads with the emus. You often see them grazing together. It would be purty interesting to organise a race between a 'roo and an emu. Somewhere out there, there is a roo lover extolling the virtues of the kangaroo's speed. Indeed, the way that the little scrub wallabies can move through the bush is nothing short of miraculous, and in open country, the roos -- which grow as tall as emus -- can also cover large distances at high speeds.

S.E.

 

[Toast n Jelly]

Quote:
I did look up the Wallace Line and it was facinating. I was actually thinking about the kangaroos and wild emus racing through but now I understand why they wouldn't be in that area .

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

One of Felicity’s endearing traits is that she sits down to eat – ‘Oh look!! Yummy for emus!!’ PLONK. This is one of those things that is perhaps normal for you guys, but a treat for me. It’s a real sign of trust.

[Here’s a chance to learn. It’s first first light. There’s a female booming on the side away from Felicity. Is it Greedy? I’ll go check.
‘Kay, I’m back. I can’t still hear the bird on the one side; but I’ve been sitting listening to Felicity booming, and a wild male is answering her! He’s just down behind the fig tree. Jump to the brackets at the bottom, guys.]

Interestingly, the only other bird that does this is Eric the Emu – but with him it’s different. He’ll come to within about six feet of you, covering the last six or eight feet to that distance on his knees, shuffling forward while watching you steadfastly with one eye. Felicity is the sort of bird that gives the species the ‘Oh, it’s so cute!’ reputation. Eric, meanwhile, is solely responsible for all the evil rumours.

I love writing about Eric. If he scored a part in a movie, his opening line would be ‘I will kill a hostage every five minutes until the money gets here.’ If he wrote self-help books, they’d have titles like ‘How to Peck out Your Enemy’s Eyes and Leave His Bones to Bleach in the Sun.’ Last summer, I undertook, for the first time, to salvage some plums from the flying birds. Eric and Mrs Eric were in residence (no accident. This relates to the serious posts above. Eric scored the lion’s share of food here until Greedy deposed him; and he still does well, thank you very much.) I would stagger about under the tree with a long pole, going stabby poke poke at ripe plums. As I worked one side, Eric would dart in and rip off the plums I’d just knocked down on the other side – one plum per gulp. If a plum bounced ten or twelve feet out from the tree, I’d have to race Eric to get it. It’s my policy that all life-forms get a fair share, and in order that Mrs. Eric get any plums at all, I have to throw a diversionary plum to Eric, and while he’s chasing it, throw one to Mrs Eric – but even that doesn’t necessarily work because he’s so greedy he’ll abandon his own plum to drive Mrs. Eric from hers, eat it, and go back for his own. I’ve seen him trying to swallow a whole peach, standing there with his eyes literally popping out of his head, and the peach looking like a football half way down his throat.

For those of you that don’t know, he’s the emu that started all this tame-emu business. I moved in here in the autumn of 2008, and he’d obviously already been coming for a long time to knock off the fallen fruit. The three chicks I tamed are his.

[Greedy is here, but she’s still clearly ill: listless, not hungry, and reluctant to approach me. Felicity appeared, full of pep, did a little spazzy dance, and drove Greedy off her food. I just can’t bear Felicity any animosity for this. As I noted above, when these birds are ‘playing,’ they aren’t. It’s deadly serious. Greedy has been trying to kill Felicity since forever, and now the boot is on the other foot.

I just can’t get a decent photo of either bird in full battle mode. I just saw F. in it. Greedy didn’t even dare to puff up and stand her ground. Felicity does look great in ‘greater panoply.’ She has better plumage than Greedy.

Funny Patches and Maybe Foxtrot are here. Poor Felicity! She simply doesn’t have the weight. The action is taking place at the lilly pilly tree – it’s the only tree bearing fruit at present. This gives me great opportunities to watch because it’s so close to the house.
So, F.P. and M.F. are eating the house-clearing emus’ berries. Greedy is too sick to drive them off. Felicity boomed and puffed, and advanced on them. They trotted off about twenty feet. She retreated. They returned. She capitulated, and went off up the driveway to finish off some wheat lying there.

The ring-necked parrots are clearly part of the emus’ early-warning-system. When the parrots take noisy flight, the emus bolt out from under the tree, to look around. I’m not sure what to think about Maybe Foxtrot. It’s an odd bird. In size, it seems like a two-year-old; but it looks old, even a bit scarred.]

Supreme Emu