Planet Rothschildi

[Tame Emu Guy]

A few times in the past, while a dozen or more birds were squabbling around the fig tree, I have seen a bird do what Eric did: plonk down on the ground. It struck me then as an expression of neutrality, but I have been waiting for more examples.

We were lucky to get the chance to observe this particular stoush. We were actually literally on the way out the door, to go to Pinticup, when I heard the noise.

I didn’t have line-of-sight for the first round, when Foreign Bird drove Eric Plus out from under the apricot tree, so I’m not sure if blows were exchanged.

What struck me, though, during the two later rounds (the birds over by the gums; Supreme Emu watching from around the laundry door), was that no blows were actually struck. We’ll come back to this. I think it’s most interesting: the birds know when to back down, and when their chances are good enough to go to blows.

Overall, what happened was:

Round One, under the apricot tree. We don’t know if it came to blows, but Eric lost.
Rounds Two and Three: long head-down approaches by Eric, then mutual prancing and flaring and hissing, then Eric withdrew.
Rounds Four and Five were perhaps oddest: Eric began his approaches tentatively, but they literally fizzled out. I rather thought, as I watched, that his heart wasn’t in it.

The Foreign Bird hasn’t turned up again.


Felicity and Felix have, though, and Felix got some wheat. You would all die laughing at his antics. Felicity stands on the road (at a safe distance from Eric Plus). Then, every minute or two, she ‘kooks,’ and Felix charges out of the block of gum trees he’s in, across the track, and into the gum trees on the other side.

It's a good thing that Felix has 'stuck.' Felicity will be five this coming mating-season. She should breed.

S.E.

 

[kbgh]

Perhaps Eric's antics weren't submissive or retreating but body language telling the foreign intruder that this was his land and he better get the HELL out. Apparently it worked in the intruder hasn't come back

 

[chickenzoo]

Bit of emu actions..... I had to pen Henry up while people were assembling a carport in the pasture. He does not like the turkey, they chase him. I stayed with him to protect him. Every time the turkeys came near, Henry would pace and start snapping his beak...this was followed by over grooming his feathers. Apparently very stressed emu snap their beaks and over groom.....

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

[S.E. feeling a little better]

Morning, K.B.

Well, no. I had best clarify this one:

the way that one emu tells another emu to get out is to publicly flog it. Don’t let the cute-bird-pinches-your-fries-at-the-picnic-area thing fool you. Eric, for example, responds to intruders by racing up and starting to beat them to death. Felicity – mildest of emu people, you recall – came home just a couple of months ago with a hole puched in her chest.



The submission thing was extraordinary because of its rarity. To witness it was to see that it was a submission, expressed in the plainest of language.


It’s important to state this because readers are trying to understand the behaviour of their pet birds. We might suppose that such submissions as we witnessed in Eric are far more common when the birds have nowhere to run to. Is that so, readers?

The ‘equations’ are:

In the wild: aggression = attack = weak bird runs or cowers (usually runs)

Pet birds: aggression = attack = death or segregation because the weak bird doesn’t have the option of running.


And The Foreign Bird? Actually, let’s jump to the next post.

S.E.

P.s.: does anyone think it's interesting that no breeding-pairs have figured out that they could get better everything by co-operating? by fighting as pairs?

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Cycle-of-Emu-Life Report
​

‘Kay, readers, the 'winter thread' gave us the faintest outline of emu behaviour in the breeding-season. Now, already in the run-up to next breeding-season, I am truly floundering. It's easy to get data when the emus obligingly shmooze and mate and lay and incubate on your doorstep. Now though, with birds ranging over large distances, it is not at all easy.

However . . . interim finding: there seems to be a quiet period in spring. The parenting males, at least, constrained by the slowness of the chicks, don’t move so much.

Perhaps the birds are busy at this time, at least for a month or more as the grass comes on, simply ‘bulking up.’ (Hence repeated mentions of Little Yellow Flowers . . . )

And perhaps now there is a sort of ‘coming out’ of the birds. The fact that local birds roll up here to squabble over the figs certainly bends our data out of shape. However, birds in general are looking for mates and food, and perhaps even water. The Big Jump and searching for mates co-occur, and would seem to involve movement.

So, The Foreign Bird may have been passing through from somewhere else; but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it returned!!

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Beautiful Sunny Morning:

All is emu madness here. Felix has discovered wheat, and is now officially ‘tame 01’!!

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

[Teklikal difficulties?]

Here’s the early-morning view I had while lying waiting for Felix to respond to Felicity’s calls – they talk to each in the most obvious manner when Felicity is ‘up front’ and Felix is slinking and lurking behind.









Eric Plus have just made their first foray for the day into the back yard. The plums will be fully ripe within days, and the twenty eights had dropped nearly two dozen before Eric Plus turned up. Here is Omega the Chick:





And look how big they are getting! This is Alpha:





And meanwhile in The Wilds of The Backyard, Supreme Emu found kangaroo blessings in his asparagus patch, next to the bird bath. Is it possible that Midnight Kangaroos – a plentiful phenomenon in my backyard – are drinking at the bird bath?

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Saturday Morning Live

Eric Plus is here.
Felicity Plus is here.
Techinical Difficulties is here.

Supreme Emu is off to town.
Good adventure yesterday: about fifty or eighty miles along the district’s back roads. Notes to follow.

Live:

Eric is chasing Felicity is chasing the wild bird that is leaning on Eric’s Dream while chicks run about cheep-cheep-cheeping. At least six birds here this morning, and it’s not yet six a.m.

I’m going to watch.

S.E.

 

[kbgh]

Score 1 for Felicity. Seems she has found an acceptable mate.

Great pics today S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Now, here’s some stuff from a recent excursion to The 500. Emus don’t always retreat to roost in scrub. Have a good look at the photo below. Firstly, there are four or five roosts on the ground in this photo.



Secondly, it’s a good shot of ‘emu country.’ Indeed, this is one of the most coveted spots for miles around.
Why? Well, it has a good range of grass, that is, the last bits of ‘green pick’ (not visible here, but to be found in little patches in the shade on the low-lying spots), and plentiful grass seeds on the heads of dead grass. And water – plentiful water on this block.
But what we are really looking at here is the lovely ‘semi-open-ness’ of the country, which gives the birds a nice combination of lines-of-sight/cover and space to run.

S.E. spends time watching Youtube footage of emus, and one noticeable reality is how few enclosures have any sort of greenery. It would be wonderful to get long-term reports from some owners who added shrubs to their pens, and then watched their birds, to see if there was a reduction in hostility among them generally.




Next – still at The 500 – is this ‘mini-pasture,’ pictured below.
This one fooled Supreme Emu, who thought, when he first spotted it, ‘Cool! I bet the birds love this spot!’
But they don’t!
Why not? Well, I’m glad you asked . . .

We are just learning to distinguish ‘green’ from ‘food.’ It really started becoming clear during the series of wet days that we recently had, readers. S.E. saw green, and ‘thought ‘food’ for emus’; but it’s weeds (which I bet the birds would eat if they were hungry enough . . . but I think you’d have to be a hungry hungry bird).

So, this delightful mini-pasture is not Yummy for emus. The green is stinkweed and reeds. There’s a lot of dirt between it. The dead grass is a type without Yummy seeds.







S.E.