My boy emu...I just love him.

[Supermommy486]

Here in Texas we got some genuine 'Texas snow'. I was so worried about my boy sitting on his nest but he made it through just fine. I'm thankful too because he is my favorite!
I'm also thankful it will be 75 on Sunday.

 

[brahmabreeder]

Cool how many eggs?

 

[Supermommy486]

Honestly no idea. I think one day I saw 4. I think.

 

[briefvisit]

Hey, Supermommy!

[Guy-with-Sheet-on-His-Head -- a joke only old timers will get.]


Yah, the frozen-solid-male-on-the-nest thingb sure is strange; but there are plenty of photos around that show that emus handle snow okay.

Check a map of Australia. Find the Great Dividing Range. The height of the highest mountain is piddling by world standards, but the stretch of the Range that runs through the south of New South Wales, and all of it in Victoria, has plentiful snow on it winter. Emus apparently range right up into this area.

(We should ask Ashburnham's advice. He is 'Planet Novaehollandiae,' that is, he lives in that part of Oz.)

Great photo!!

Supreme Emu

 

[Supermommy486]

Neat!!
I try not to worry too much and know that nature has this all figured out more than I do but since he is the sweetest of them all I couldn't help but worry.

 

[briefvisit]

Information!! S.E. rang around some towns on the Great Dividing Range. A local in Oberon was kind enough to track down a National Parks and Wildlife Services guy, who flatly contradicts what The Maps say. The maps show that emus range most everywhere. The N.P.W.S. guy says, 'No: not about about 400 metres elevation.'

But your male is clearly doin' okay. I sure thought about the two wild males that nested by my house. We were well short of snow, but it was relentlessly cold and wet for weeks while they were sitting.

S.E.

 

[yinepu]

mine hate the cold high winds.. but the snow never bothered them!

 

[Supermommy486]

Neat Briefvisit!
Yinepu the one time we had snow since having them they were younger and didn't seem bothered. lol

 

[briefvisit]

It has been wonderful to watch -- in just the one location, my region -- the range of temperatures that the emus handle. I vividly recall the first time I saw a bird panting in the heat. I thought it was ill. We had a string of days between 105 and 110 last year. Yet six months later a male was sitting day in day out in pouring rain and high winds while incubating.

S.E. is evil 'cause he is always thinking ahead of himself . . . . still, 'nestcam' -- that is, sixty days on a wild male -- would be a fabulous insight. I personally would like to see if these birds are threatened at that time by predators.


S.E.

 

[briefvisit]

Yinepu, more thoughts on the 'cold high winds,' please.

I ruckon emus hate wind in general because it reduces their safety margin: their hearing is a primary defense. But in your case is it the cold of the wind, or the wind of the wind?


S.E.