Planet Rothschildi

[Tame Emu Guy]

Taken from the roof last night:

 

[kbgh]

Quote: Could it be the dams are too much in the open and they don't feel secure?

I noticed in some of the pictures the dams are fed by wind mills. Maybe e the noise from the windmills spook the emus. Do you see signs of either emu or roos at the dams? I assume the dams are fresh sweet water! Do you see signs of them frequenting the Frankland?

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

[Nah, don’t like the ‘log method’ of recording data.]

Bingo, patient citizens!! At last – though they are all guerrilla photos – S.E. has for you a kindergarten example of what he has been hoping for. We don’t know if there is an ornithologist ‘out there’ anywhere doing work on this species; but I haven’t found anything like this on the Net. We’ll get better at it:


Six thirty am. Fine cool morning in early fig season:



Speckles and Sarah came boldly to the fruit trees by the fence. Speckles actually sticks beak over fence. Sarah, as always, was wary. It's delightful to hear S. and S. quietly talking to each other.

Eric Plus were on the other side of the house.

Then S. and S. moved to the fig tree.

[S.E. still indecisive about observation spots: easy to get in and out of means S.E. too easy to see; hard to be seen means poor observations; and it’s tiring to kneel at length behind the bush where I got these photos. We’ll work on this one.]

Next: Eric Plus came ‘into play’ from the wings; didn’t confront S. and S. straight away; just ‘swung out’ a little and moved into the backyard. E.P. is definitely taking advantage of the ‘sanctity’ of the back yard.’ See the photo below:




Next: some minutes later, Eric ushers S. and S. off stage. No resistance on their part. See photo below:





Next: okay, now it gets interesting. Check the photo below.
The bird visible just above Eric’s rump is Audacious.

At this point, those present are Eric, Alpha Chick, Omega Chick, Speckles, Sarah, Audacious; a female audible to the north west (not the bird I mentioned yesterday), and I think one other bird standing motionless in the gums.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Next: tee hee . . . I put the one below in just for fun – look!! I got Backyard Emus!! (Pardon the mess. It's real-estate-inspection preparation.)



Next: blast!! Sad Old Camera has a delay between ‘press button’ and ‘snap photo.’ My point here is that Eric somehow signalled to me that he wasn’t gonna put up with this. That is, he has just started moving out. Note two things about the chicks, readers. Firstly, you can see their different colours. Secondly, it’s Alpha, the larger (lighter) chick that is next to Eric.

Now, fellow eemologists, imagine that the photo hadn’t caught Eric looking over his shoulder. Check his feet! Now imagine that you are ‘in the binos’ with me. The scene is thus:

Eric and Alpha the Belligerent have signalled that they are going to ‘sweep’ again. There are six birds in this photo: Sarah is just out of sight behind a fence post. S. and S. are ‘treading water.’ They will depart in the direction in which they are oriented.

And Audacious? What direction is he facing? He has come from behind the fig tree, and unto the fig tree shall he return. Okay, here’s the photo.


Finally: note that only one chick – Alpha – is in formation with Eric. Omega has developed the habit of pretty much ignoring the action. It’s a new and remarkable divergence in their personalities.

Now, bear in mind that this is a clumsy and abbreviated analysis of a very minor ‘play.’
Later on, S.E. shall ‘walk you through’ at least one much much larger ‘play.’ The two things to bear in mind are (a) how breathtakingly subtle all the body language is, and (b) how shockingly bad at interpreting it S.E. is.

Here’s just one example of (a): if we could arrange ten or a dozen different sets of footage of ‘evictions’ by more powerful birds of a less powerful birds, we would see clear patterns in things like how close the weaker bird allows the stronger bird to get before it withdraws, and how the posture of the stronger bird indicates its certainty of its power.

Does anyone recall that S.E. was a little puzzled by the first encounter that he witnessed between Foreign Bird and Eric? The encounter that I witnessed was the second round. S.E. missed the first. Why were blows not exchanged during that second round?

Answer: the issue had already been decided beneath the apricot tree, where Eric got struck by Foreign Bird. It was Eric’s behaviour during the second round that ensured S.E. that the feathers under the apricot tree were Eric’s not Foreign Bird’s!!
Here’s the final photo in the series:

 

[kbgh]

You may be using the old camera but the shots are fantastic. Interesting to see the interactions. Alpha and omega have gottten quite large. Will Eric nest again this fall or will he nurture the chicks for another season?

What did Eric and Alpha find to eat at the clothes drying tree?

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

How long does the male emu parent the chicks? Still trying to work this out!! Haven’t paid enough attention myself, K.B.; and the information on the Net is contradictory.

Quality observations are the bottom line. For example, somewhere on the Winter Thread, you will find a report of a male with a single chick. It was winter; the chick was half grown (ergo, a chick hatched the previous winter); therefore: that parent has parented that chick for one year. (And this is no complaint, merely An Insight: I froze for nearly two hours, creeping on my hands and kness, and lying wrapped up like a polar bear in wet gum-leaf litter, to get a 50-second observation. S.E. wanted to know if birds cross this fence at this point. Answer: yes, they do . . . and the fact that one of the birds observed was the chick is incidental.)

What are the chicks eating? Well, there’s a deal of grass seed to be had simply because other birds aren’t getting to it (though they are getting the grass six inches away, on the other side of the fence). Remember that I’ve joked about miniature dinosaurs’ heads popping up at my window? That’s because there’s a patch of feed under the window that only they get: wild birds won’t come that close.

Secondly, the plums fall down right up to those gardens beds you can see behind the chicks. (I am thankful and mystified that my birds have never taken a liking to the garden. I expected them to scoff up my tomatoes at least, but no.)

S.E.



Amendment: I have -- me, Mark -- popped back to offer thanks: the observations are a joy, even when I am cold and wet, because I know the BYC-ers are along for the ride.


Many hands make light work.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Could it be the dams are too much in the open and they don't feel secure?

I noticed in some of the pictures the dams are fed by wind mills. Maybe e the noise from the windmills spook the emus. Do you see signs of either emu or roos at the dams? I assume the dams are fresh sweet water! Do you see signs of them frequenting the Frankland?

K.B.: yes, the dams are in the open, and the birds must feel insecure . . . but there’s no other water.

Those windmills are derelict.

Some dams are good; some not. I am still working on this. (What the local lads know about where to catch freshwater crustaceans (‘marron’ etc.) is knowledge to be gained.

Are the emus drinking from the Frankland River? Wait! I shall find out.

S.E.

 

[chickenzoo]

Beautiful pics.....

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

[Not-too-hot day, warm evening; S.E. scrubbing floors; feeling a little better.]

If only we could observe some desert birds, woodwardis. How do they handle the heat?

The evening observations are almost philosophically subtle sometimes. Grazing ends by ‘emu time,’ readers. E.P., for example, have retired to roost by the time the last direct sunlight has lifted from the clearing. A bird or two 'ghosts' up the track or through the gums just fifteen or twenty minutes before that. If you aren't already in position . . .

Audacious was still here five minutes before that time this evening, and there was another bird in sight nearby.

[We are going to slyly keep switching observation points because the birds know that the back of the trees is a blind spot. They slip through the gums to the back of the tree, and if they don’t vocalise (though they usually do if in numbers) or come around the front of the trees, they are hidden . . . but you still know they are there because you can hear them wrassling to tear the figs from the branches.]

Now, let’s jump to roosting vis a vis emu life in general. Always minimalist, let’s list some things we are fairly certain of:

One: emus roost close to the last pasture on which they graze.

Two: therefore, if you see a bird grazing on a pasture within an hour of dawn, it probably didn’t roost far away at all – we’re talking within, say, a quarter of a mile.

[Recall that we saw a pair of birds at dawn ‘over back of Oudman’s.’ They were grazing hardly after it was light enough to see them clearly through the binos. Assuming that they didn’t set out for the pasture before dawn – a notion I flat out reject – we can assume that they roosted pretty close. Meanwhile, I have on a dozen occasions seen E.P. settle down to roost within fifty yards of their ‘last pasture.’]

Three: if you see a bird grazing just before dusk, you know (as per Rule One) that it will roost nearby, and may be back on that same pasture soon after dawn.

Guys, Audacious was at the fig tree for ‘first sitting’; and he was there three minutes before I settled down to watch E.P. settle down for the night at their roost (and he was there a number of times during the day).

So . . . I reckon Audacious is presently based close – really close. Moreover, there was still a female calling at that time, so perhaps that bird is also roosting close. Recall that I have mentioned the ‘fitful booms’ female down near Meadow One. That’s only two hundred yards.

If these guesses are right, we have six birds roosting in an area under 250 yards square – and fig season is barely begun!! Either way, it gives us a flimsy datum on population density.

Now, our knowledge of how females vocally ‘stake out’ their territories began to gel only in the last weeks of the Winter-Thread project. This year, though, we will be attentive to the dynamic from . . . well, from now. It may already have begun in a lesser form. (I have heard a few booms at night, but nothing yet strong or repetitive.)

[Observations of E.P.’s roosting are underway again. Details in a couple of days.]

Finally on this subject, Speckles and Sarah were here pretty early. S.E. will ‘take roll call’ each morning and evening henceforth, and see if reliable patterns emerge. If S. and S. repeatedly arrive a little later after dawn, and are repeatedly ‘absent’ in the later afternoon, then we can guess they are roosting a little further away. By cross-referencing data like this, we can add data to . . . all the other analyses.

[One of the things that came up in the first ten minutes of my conversation with the Dutch ornithologist was the notion of GPS trackers for birds.]

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

First audit of the season!!

S.E. heard a couple of strings of booms during the night, but neither long nor strong.

Was at the listening post (chair and coffee) at 3:30 am. Wanted primarily to time both calls and the arrival of birds at the pasture. To my surprise, there were two females booming within earshot – neither weakly nor very strongly, but quite possibly ‘mating-season stuff.' One to the east and one to the north.

Kookaburra called at 4:00. The female to the east had started booming before dawn. The second didn’t start until dawn. (We should think about that.)

Eric Plus turned up at 5:00.

Audacious turned up at 5:15, which delighted me, readers: he just can’t be roosting too far away at all. The ‘northern female’ was audible fairly close (north is just ‘down behind’ the fig trees).

E.P. came down after their morning wheat, and Eric made . . . hmmm . . . we need words for this: it wasn’t a rush; it wasn’t ‘ushering away’ . . . Audacious was standing motionless about thirty yards down the track beside the fig, and Eric sort of ‘gestured,’ by movement, down towards Audacioius, in a manner that seemed to quietly state that E.P. were going to have a turn at the tree now. (and it involved a sort of extension and retraction of Eric’s neck, a sort of neck-and-head pointing behaviour). Audacious remains uniquely patient.

At about 6:00, I happened upon Eric invigilating to the west. I can’t think of another or better word. He stood stock still for minutes, except for his head. He stared intently in just a couple of directions (west). By that time, readers, there was just a little background noise, chiefly a very light breeze and bird calls. These make auditing a very different proposition from the remarkable quiet of pre-dawn. My point here is that quite possibly Eric could hear things that I couldn’t. We note that his behaviour was quite like that of Greedy and Felicity last winter, but without the booming.

Now, S.E. got to have a little roost. Speckles and Sarah haven’t turned up; but I will be satisfied if I spot them on the clearing in the next hour or so, which will tell us that they are probably roosting further away.

Let’s say that the two booming females are around three or four hundred yards away (and I frankly admit that my judgement of direction and distances out here is remarkably bad. It’s not my hearing, guys. It’s the nature of the beast.) And let’s assume that there is one bird over in the direction in which Eric is looking. That gives us a block about six hundred yards wide and four hundred yards deep (around the clearing) in which there are perhaps seven birds. So, we have one guess about population density at one place. Later, we’d have to try to relate it to other situations. It’s just gotta be the highest density for some distance, and S.E. would bet any reader a bottle of cold stout that there isn’t anywhere on my place except The 500 that has the same density.

(I bet The 500 does!! ‘Kay, then . . . let’s undertake a pre-dawn audit there this month. To do that on the morning after a really hot day would not be an unpleasant task at all, actually. We could even take coffee, and stay for a dawn observation!! Finally, S.E. would be thrilled if a known bird was observed at The 500 around mid-morning.)

S.E.