Planet Rothschildi

[ThePendragon]

Greetings. Are those birds eating nothing but flowers or do they also eat grass and leaves? If you have leafy trees that they could acsess.
Did you say spring??? Its so cold here, haha.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hi, B.R.

Both my birds and the wild birds balance their diets. They’ll eat little yellow flowers for a while, then switch to grass, then back again. If you patiently observe them, you can see them making the rounds. Even my greedy birds will only eat about a coffee can of wheat before going back to grass. Then later they’ll go back and finish off any remaining grains.

I've never noticed them eat leaves, though there are some other things in their diet that I haven't identified.

I think the bottom line, B.R., is that the wild birds need to ingest a great deal more; and they spend long hours every day doing that. You may recall that I asked about the volume of food that a pet bird receives each day. It is much less by volume because it's so much more nutritious. So, they may eat literally hundreds of flowers, then still spend hours eating grass.

Yup, it’s Spring here; and as soon as I figure out how to send it as an attachment, you can all have a share.

I saw Felicity come into the backyard this morning, and stand under the early-bearing plum tree, and look wistfully up into it, and peck a bit at the leaves. It’s not accidental. They must have good memories for extra yummies like this.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Felicity and Wild Birds:

Spoke too soon about an absence of wild birds! Today, while approaching the house-clearing (and I had the binos), I saw several birds in the clearing, so I sat and watched. One was Felicity, and the other two were wild birds, one male, from the sounds.

Felicity squared off to one; and then backed down. So, she has an inexplicable leverage over Greedy and Speckles; but let’s see how things go when wild birds turn up in numbers.
S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

B.R.!!

The little yellow flowers aren’t daisies. They are these guys.


I had a good look at a patch where Felicity was grazing. There are five or more species of ‘green pick’: Little Yellow Flowers, clover, a plant with a wheat-like head on it, and others. However, there’s no doubt about it: emus around here, tame and wild, luuuurrrvvv little yellow flowers, and decapitate them with vigour by the hundred.

While on the subject of My Being Wrong: I revel in it -- that is, at least here, among friends. Every day of The Great Big Emu Project leaves me more confused about What It All Means. Yesterday, I made two forays into The 500, and saw no chicks, so this morning I went down to Top Corner, to see if I could observe wild birds crossing the fence into the gums – nary a one. Didn’t sight a single bird.
Certainly the overall pattern of the birds’ movement – I mean season-to-season – remains a mystery, though I look forward to unravelling it.
Here are two photos. The log is deep in The 500. I was there at dusk. It's great to walk quietly through because you know there are wild birds to be seen. The second photo is a dam nearby. I think the clutches drink there -- but I couldn't find tracks. (Found my first emu chick blessing, though). Just imagine: all we emu lovers could sit quietly near the dam on a Sunday afternoon, with a glass of red wine or orange juice, and just watch. Truly, guys -- just between us -- it's fantastic whether emus turn up or not; but it would be truly memorable for you guys if a clutch came down to drink.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Splendid Observation:

I happened to be cutting across The 500, but ‘over the back’ of ‘the nursery.’ No binos; just out walking. I heard a male call, and just sat down (fine Spring morning). Great country for observing: ‘gappy’ rows of gums, which gives plenty of cover for all involved.
Sporadic quiet male-calls followed. Then a wild bird walked into sight quite close. It vocalised a number of times -- female. Then the male appeared close to me.

The pair called back and forth enthusiastically, which puzzled me because wild birds are usually fairly quiet unless there’s something going on. Well, there was something going on. There was a third bird just a little further off, and perhaps it was this that distracted the male: I was sitting right in front of him as he walked slowly towards me.

I was astounded. I’ve never seen a really wild and unaware-of-me bird so close from that angle – that is, right front on. It was so close I could have hit it with a tennis ball, yet it didn’t see me.

I could see his claws bunching and spreading as he lifted and lowered his feet as he quietly high-stepped through the grass. The calls between the pair continued, and they grazed between calls. Then the female had a bit of a grunt-and-rush at the third bird, then all three drifted off.

Supreme Emu

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

This season’s ‘big chicks’ are past the cutey-stripes stage. They are ash grey, with their black-head-stage pin feathers coming on. Five (six?) in the clutch today. Again, the interesting intra-clutch behaviour: the chicks saw me first; formed a group and moved out of line of sight. No vocalisations. Dad came into view, and stood tall and watched me*. Then I moved clumsily, and they bolted.

The chicks are no longer running in fatty-bottom-waddle mode, but are rapidly gaining long-legged grace.




S.E.

* He actually took a pace or two towards me. I'm going to watch for this behaviour. I've seen it several times.
Check Youtube 'Emus on Thargomindah Quilpie Track.' You can see the male doing it: chicks bolt; male stands between chicks and intruder; waits; then bolts to lead the chicks.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Supreme Emu Enjoys The Spring Sunshine

Hi, everyone!! I shall bumble along with my ‘Emu-Year’ project. What is the yearly cycle of the wild birds? Where are they coming from and going to?

The mating-season is the first part. Now is chick-rearing time for those males who bred successfully – but what are all the other birds doing?

Observations in a new area!!: ​

Today I struggled about six miles, to look for some patterns. Do you recall the ‘Top Corner’ down by Coffey’s fence? Well, that fence runs east-west, and I followed it down to the river, which I crossed; then headed up to the enormous open area that used to be the blue-gum plantation over by Stinky Creek, which we visited together last Winter. In doing so, I crossed through six distinct environments, ranging from the lush green pick in the aisles of gums at Top Corner, through ‘starvation scrub,’ through the swamp down by the river, through the enormous open space where the gums have been harvested, down into the charming glades of Stinky Creek.

One of my joys is to snuggle down into a pile of litter, and sit and scan, on the principle that ‘if you wait, they’ll come to you.’ It’s splendid to watch for perhaps thirty or forty minutes before you see some birds grazing happily in the distance. Several days ago, I observed four birds, at a distance of over a half a mile, for over an hour – and that’s not pointless. It was late afternoon, and I wanted to see where they went to roost. This is part of the ‘patterns thing.’ I eventually lost sight of them, but they were headed in just the direction I had predicted.

It’s the patterns of movement that I am presently interested in; but bear in mind that those are part and parcel of how the birds interact. For example, if a male breeds successfully, he will be parenting through ‘Chick-Rearing Season.’ Other birds will be elsewhere. They'll be in breeding-pairs, and alone alone, or alone but travelling with flockettes.

Here’s an early early thesis:

Mating-Season: established breeding-pairs breed first. During this time, all the ‘free-floating males’ move around, trying to mate with females in the second round of mating, and thus also become parents. It is interesting to see the discrepancy of the size of the chicks. Clearly, some males finish incubating about two months before others. I have no idea yet what all the other birds do.

So, we jump to ‘Chick-Rearing Season,’ which is now. Once again, the movements at the house-clearing here are a mystery to me. I haven’t seen Greedy (and Speckles) for some time, and I haven’t seen Felicity for some days. More importantly, though, I have, in recent weeks, seen almost no birds near the clearing. The feed is lush; but no takers.

As I’ve explained, the clutches are down at the ‘nursery’ at The 500 and there are a few other birds there as well; and there are numbers of wild birds, sex unknown, down in the gums at the Top Corner – that feed is truly lush, and is holding out noticeably well as the weather warms. There are a few birds down at the corridor, and when I see just two birds together, I assume a pair. I can spot birds at Oudman’s if I try, again, sex unknown; but birds in pairs are probably pairs.

I saw eight birds over near Stinky Creek today: a flock of three, another of four, and a lone bird – sex unknown. (I heard a gaggle of birds kook-kook-kooking away in a block of gums, but we won’t count that as a sighting.)
Okay, back to movement patterns: my conclusion is:

I don’t know very much . . .

but . . . I noticed, as I walked the length of the east-west fence, that birds are crossing it. Now, that means that the birds don’t, in general, just plonk down at night in the rows of the gums at Top Corner, and go to sleep, then wake up the next morning and start grazing.

What is south of that fence is: a strip of ‘starvation scrub’ about a hundred yards wide, then the highway – which they’d have to cross, then the National Park, lots and lots and lots of lovely National Park. So, if they aren’t roosting at Top Corner, they are roosting somewhere else. It could be in the strip between fence and highway – we have audited birds in numbers there during mating-season.

The bottom line, readers, once again, is fences – that is, the birds around me are ‘Category 5a,’ by which I mean they are wild, but their lives revolve around ‘human-produced pastures’ – it may be a decade since there were humans at Oudman’s; but the grass is lush there because of the sheep pooh left behind. Full stop. (It’s over a decade since the last sheep poohed here in the clearing, but grass in the old yards, and on the old sheep-loading ramp, is the best of an area of, say, 1,500 acres around the clearing.)

So, when I got out onto the lunar landscape of the cleared area over near Stinky Creek, that is, where the gums had been cut, I found myself with a puzzle: birds graze in the open here. I’ve seen them a number of times as I pass in vehicles. Moreover, there are plentiful blessings – but, guys, why would they bother? The pickings are pathetic in comparison to the greenery at Stinky Creek, which is right next door.Not bad, but not nearly as good. My first thought is:

Some birds roost in the National Park south of this cleared patch. Let’s suppose that Emily Emu roosts on the south side of this big cleared area, that is, she sleeps in the National Park, and can step out onto the cleared area at first light. There is no point going south. The National Park is, well, not a starvation block, but no bird in its right mind would graze there if it could get to anything better. Emily can’t move to the West because the river is in the way; but she can move north – she can just step out onto the cleared area and graze.

Exactly what we are trying to learn here, guys, is where and how far the birds move. Can dozens and dozens of birds roost just to the south of the splendid pastures of Stinky Creek? Probably not. Think about how the birds here fight for access to the grass here. Surely the same thing happens at the Creek!? It’s an area, all up, about four hundred yards square, though it’s in patches. Perhaps there’s a ‘dynamic’ of birds, some alpha birds and their consorts, and some fairly powerful ‘peripheral’ birds. that ‘hold’ the Creek pasture just as my birds hold the clearing here – and the reason that Emily and her mates are grazing on the lesser pasture of the open space is that (a) they can’t muscle in at the Creek, and (b) they are otherwise quite boxed in by the river on the west, and the fences and the highway to the north of the area cleared of gums.

As I said at the beginning, guys, these are early early thoughts; but these birds are practical: they roost somewhere at night, and at dawn they move some distance to graze. There is no sense in trekking every day to get to pasture.

So: ‘A’: my birds: sometimes, even for weeks on end, turn up morning and night for a feed. Between those feeds, they move up to – what do you reckon? A mile? A bit more? – then back for their evening feed, then they roost right next to the clearing.

‘B’: birds graze on the swamp paddock at Coffey’s – and that’s separated by a decent fence from the Top Corner, just a quarter of a mile away. The B birds, I am almost positive, come onto the swamp paddock via an island of scrub that lies along the fence between Coffey’s and me. What’s the bet, then, that these birds roost on my place, and graze on the swamp paddock or elsewhere on my place?

‘C’: ‘Top Corner birds’: what’s the bet that the birds that generally graze in the Top Corner mostly roost to the South, either in the strip, or right on the other side of the highway, in the National Park?

‘D’: remember last Winter we walked the fence over at Oudman’s? Well, I have observed birds moving to and from that pasture on about eight different occasions, and on every occasion except one – which was a male with two chicks – the birds came or went from the same point, and that’s where, you will remember, we found the busy fence-crossing point ‘down around the corner.’ Note again: movement ‘channelled’ by fences.

‘E’: the birds right over the back of Oudman’s, the ones that always run back to the National Park when I turn up. They graze in the enormous enormous area of ‘cleared-of-gums pasture’ right on the North side of the National Park that they run into. What’s the bet that they roost in the N.P., and graze on that pasture during the day? These birds can’t go south, east, or west – it’s all starvation scrub. They could get to the pasture at Oudman’s; but it’s too far, there are too many fences, and they’d have to fight the Oudman birds anyway.

Remember that I described that strange ‘pooh spot’ in the starvation island of scrub right by the fence of the National Park? Gee -- that’s going back a bit: there’s an ‘island of scrub’ about a hundred yards north of the N.P. This island is in the pasture. There isn’t a single blade of grass in that island; but it’s absolutely littered with blessings. Dozens and dozens, readers. At the time I described it to you, it made little sense. Now it makes some: maybe a gaggle of birds roosts there, and grazes on the pasture during the day.

‘Kay, that’s enough for tonight. Wild guess? Early early thesis, here among friends?:

there’s a power play around each reasonable pasture. Some number of birds are – now, chick-raising season – based around that pasture. Perhaps a dozen or so. They roost in bush nearby. They roam on a daily basis over, say, a mile or a mile and a half square. They graze in groups of two and three and four.

Supreme Emu

 

[chickenzoo]

What.......no pictures........ Lol.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hi, E.H.!! Gee, just when I think, 'Nope, too long a post to be interesting!!' or 'Gee, I've taken them over there before,' you express enthusiasm.
'Kay, first: You Are a Prehistoric Emu:

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

You are a prehistoric emu. Go!!:

Just weeks ago, there were puddles of winter rain everywhere. But the last of them is now just a puddle surrounded by tracks. Luckily, the dew on the grass each morning is a real help.

It’s noticeably hotter every day out in the ‘big paddocks.’ That long lush spring grass is still plentiful, but the writing is on the wall -- and every afternoon, those kangaroos, so many more of them than us, are ‘changing shifts’ at sunset, moving on to the pastures to eat the grass!

At least there’s one kangaroo less. That corpse I saw this morning -- well, surgically neat, really: ripped the Achilles heel right out! Hope it doesn’t happen to me, at least not before I produce one good clutch of chicks.

Last year wasn’t good enough! Two infertiles, and two chicks taken before we even left the nest! Four out of a possible nine before the chicks had ever walked more than a hundred yards!!

First off this morning, down to the swamp for a drink. Tank right up. In a couple of months, it’ll be the only water short of the river. There will hardly be anywhere within a thousand miles a beakful of water that is not in these low-lying areas.

Too much fighting!! Felicity, that nice Alpha female from up the swamp – she got a hole punched in her chest the other day, and it’s still four months short of The Really Hard Time!! If it’s a hot summer, there’ll be a lot of deaths. [Not me! Not me! Not me!]
I hear that the guys over the river are already feuding over the Stinky Creek pasture. That crappy pasture next door is drying up fast, and the birds from over there are trying to muscle in on the Creek!

Takin’ a break later this morning. Gonna hang with some other dads over the other side of the nursery – but gotta stay away from all that non-dad-emu drama that’s goin’ on. And there’s a little glade of emu-berry bushes over there. There might even be a few berries ready on it.

Goodness! First heat shimmer of the season, and already a zillion flies. Glad I got double eyelids.
Doesn’t matter. Just stay head down and tail up – but all eyes at the same time on the chicks, though it gets easier fast as they get faster. Those first two weeks or so – straight after the fast – are really nerve-wracking. That pair of dingoes ate well this year. How can you beat a pair!! They must have got twenty or more chicks in a week!

Don’t worry about that. Just keep grazing. [Build up fat. Build up fat.] Think about that big glossy female who holds the clearing just off the swamp. Boy, I’d like to incubate her eggs!