Planet Rothschildi

[yinepu]

Yinepu, I'm reading your report now. I popped on to apologise for being too rude to ask after your bird.

S.E.

lol.. no worries SE.. Just figured you might be able to use the info so you can get an idea of how Felicity should recover from her injuries

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Actually, it encouraged me. I lack experience of this. Now I understand that Felicity has a very very good chance.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Dawn at the farmhouse, gonna be a fine autumn day.

Eric didn’t turn up yesterday. I feel that we can rule out misadventure. It’s not impossible, but it’s unlikely.

So . . . how did Alpha Chick come to be wandering around Terra Australis on his feathery little own? I suggested – do you guys agree? -- the ‘parenting time-frame’ has gotta be

1. The male parents for between six to ten months; jettisons the chicks; then enters the milieu of the following mating-season. Thus, a clutch every year, or
2. The male parents for a period approaching two years. Thus, a clutch every two years.

Of course, feeding the chicks has some affect on the process, a variety of the observer affect. We’ve been attentive to this all along.

Meanwhile: guys, a while ago, while researching past posts (which have turned out to be great source of data!) I’m sure I recall finding a mention of Eric having passed through, about three years ago, with a clutch of chicks. How could I have forgotten this? My point is that it would give us a neat chronology of Eric’s parenting over a number of years – but I’m just not sure enough about That Other Clutch.

What we do know is:

# Eric had a clutch in 2008. I tamed those chicks from about six months. I recall Eric beginning to no longer share food with the chicks. I think that was when they were about the same age as Alpha and Omega are now. Then those chicks – Felicity, Greedy, and Number One -- were here on their own (being fed by me). Please accept my apologies for the lack of detail. This was long before I started formally observing.

# Big Blank until 2012

# Eric the Emu, whom we know (Emu gets to be ‘whom’?) turned up here with his 2012 clutch. Once again, we have to note the affect that feeding might well have on the natural dynamic. Now, on the eve of the following mating-season, we see one of Eric’s chicks here alone. We don’t see Eric.

That’s it, boys and girls: I report what I see, and we try to work it out.

[And . . . check out the Miniature Gallery of Youtube clips. There’s footage there of a male with a bunch of almost-fully-grown chicks.]


Next: Felix Emu is back!! I’m 95% sure it’s him. It’s a good good thing, I suppose, because it puts Felicity on track to mate. [Go, Felicity!!]

Next: forget the calendar, guys. It’s autumn here. We had wild birds here two days ago. Soon, they’ll be here in phalanxes. Felicity has hung in here – we wondered at why. She’s gotta be losing weight while hanging around here – but has now won out: the house-clearing is hers . . .

until Greedy turns up.

Gee!! We’re right back at the end of last winter, when Felicity was the how-did-she-get-there? queen of the clearing.

[The house lights absolutely do set Felicity to booming, and she’s booming away, loud and happy, just behind the fig tree, as I type. It’s five a.m.]

Eric can flog Felicity, but Eric’s not here. He’s probably now flogging lesser emus on his home turf.

Foreign Bird can flog Eric, but it’s only ever made one appearance. (Readers, we have spent time correlating alpha-ness to pastures. If this is the best pasture within literally miles, where did Foreign Bird come from? How far did it travel to get here?)

Greedy is due to turn up in plus-or-minus a month. We will then learn whether she or Felicity will wind up on top. I promise to report.

Second-last bit, Alpha Chick:

Eric is an evolutionary success story. His chicks are well-fed and aggressive. They know their way around. They know Meadows One and Two, the Corridor, probably the Top Corner, probably the nursery, and Eric’s home pasture. They know the water sources. They know what is Yummy, and where and when it will be available. They are too big to be easy pickings for most predators. They are on a most fortunate bit of turf here: almost no humans, vehicles, cats, or dogs. The ‘fenced’ areas are navigable. All in all, Eric has set them up as well as can be expected for a species that has a seventy-five percent attrition rate. Sadly, if Alpha and Omega pass through the house-clearing in future, we’ll have real trouble identifying them. Nevertheless, we’ll keep an eye out.

I just saw Alpha by the house. Okay! Boy! He still is a mere morsel.


The figs will be on in two or three weeks. It’s by far the most enjoyable season of observations. Supreme Emu is gonna sit in the sunshine, in the new garden, and enjoy it.

S.E.

 

[yinepu]

Actually, it encouraged me. I lack experience of this. Now I understand that Felicity has a very very good chance.

S.E.

Glad it helps. So how is she doing?

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hi, Yinepu!

She hasn’t shown a single symptom of illness at all. If it hadn’t been for the blood spattered all over her, I’d not have known. (The wound is under her chest feathers.) I thought the wound had healed; but when I saw the wetness on her chest feathers, I knew it has not.

What troubles me is that we are at the start of what is, in effect, fighting-season. Felicity is, I sense, anxious to mate; and she’s gonna go hell for leather to achieve that – gee, that’s how she got a hole punched in her rib cage in the first place!

Let’s wait and see. The departure of Eric is a blessing. It really gives Felicity some ‘down time’ in which to rest (and chase Alpha Chick about).

S.E.

 

[yinepu]

Paco's wound today




attacked January 15th
This is March 1st

So that's just over 6 weeks for it to heal

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Thanks, Yinepu. Felicity is well fed and in good condition. She should soon be fit for Autumn Madness -- which is what I've popped on to post about,

S.E.

 

[yinepu]

Thanks, Yinepu. Felicity is well fed and in good condition. She should soon be fit for Autumn Madness -- which is what I've popped on to post about,

S.E.

I hope she's all healed up before the Madness begins.. I figured Paco's wound timeline would give you some insight as to how Felicity should be healing

please keep us updated!

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Irregular Report:

First report from the new garden!!

It’s autumn, guys. The first yellow leaves have appeared on the fruit trees; and more importantly, I just picked my first fig of the season.

S.E. is having a hard time distinguishing individual wild birds now.

Felicity has been chasing Alpha Chick around – in fact, Alpha just pulled a stunt that Felicity used to pull when she was a chick: a chick can scoot under the lowest branches of the fig trees. Felicity used to do just that when Eric was bullying her. I just saw Alpha ‘shake off’ Felicity-in-pursuit by charging through the fig trees, which Felicity is too big to do now. Che sera!

[There is no love lost between adult birds and chicks. Alpha outsmarted itself yesterday: it was a mite slow to make it to the side-gate as Felicity approached, and Felicity gave it a flogging.]

The Big Picture is this, readers:

Eric has decamped. S.E. guesses he has gone to his home turf.

S.E., for one, sure would like to have witnessed the relevant sequence of events, so we could now know (a) how did Alpha come to be alone? (b) is Omega Chick likewise alone somewhere? (c) did Eric parent the chicks for a normal length of time? and (d) will Eric and Mrs. Eric re-unite to breed (which would be contrary to all that we read)?

It may be that Eric won’t make an appearance for months. It may even be that he won’t turn up until he turns up in January ’14 with another clutch of chicks. (?!!) That would be a great datum, guys. Three clutches of chicks in six years.

Or (he did it last year), he may turn up here with his consort, and enjoy the figs for a while before moving (back)
to his breeding-pasture. (Once again, readers, we are thinking aloud on the basis of too little solid data.)

Next: Felicity is without a consort. It is not too late, but it is disappointing that Felix didn’t ‘stick.’ It bodes poorly for her in several ways. Firstly, as just noted, it’s not an optimal start to the breeding-season. Secondly, she’d have a better chance of accessing the figs if she had a consort to help her. (Felix was a lovely powerful bird, though scruffy. I liked him; he’d have been just the ticket.)

Anyway, here’s is the reason for this irregular post:

imagine, if you will, that there is an invisible line just behind the fig trees. For most of the year, that is the demarcation line that marks the house-clearing from Everywhere Else. Now imagine that, on The Day of The First Fig of The Season, the Gods come and move the line. For six or eight weeks (as the long-term readers remember from ‘Mating-Season in Australia,’ a year ago), that corner of the clearing becomes a bona fide free-for-all Skirmish Zone. It’s catch as catch can, guys. And the incursions will increase in ‘depth’ until they include the lilly pilly tree by the house, and, eventually, pretty much the whole south side of the clearing.

Ten minutes ago, The New S.E. was sitting, crushing the lumps in a water-filled barrow of sheep blessings (from under the old shearing-shed. Eat your hearts out, BYC gardeners: got twenty inches of pooh under it!!). The backyard fence, you recall, has been removed, so the backyard is now well integrated with the clearing. Felicity and Alpha were in sight, with F. bullying A. at every opportunity.

Then . . . a wild bird just walked straight out of the gums and began eating figs. Felicity made a brief ‘show of strength’ by standing and booming on the far side of the tree, then . . .

she suddenly found many things of great interest in the garden and the carport.

Within a month, there’ll be phalanxes of birds leaning on her dream. (That, guys, was/is the reason for my concern about Felicity’s chest wound. She may well tangle with some of these birds.)

Finally, has anyone, as they read, been asking themselves if Greedy and Consort will just rock up and join the fray? It’s highly likely. If it happens, we’ll meet another consort.

S.E.

 

[Ashburnham]

After a long hot dry spell we had 51 mils of rain.
Suddenly the figs are ripe- birds and flying foxes are already into them.
I(I've got one of my gamecams up the fig tree to try and photograph them.)
How are things doing over there?


M