Planet Rothschildi

[yinepu]

well... I'm still rooting for Felicity!

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Felicity Update:

Felicity and Noddy come about every second day. Their bond really seems to be gelling. There is a third bird, a just-two-year-old, that strings along with them(?). As per this time of year, other birds are better tolerated. Two days ago, several other pairs turned up to schmooze right out the front of the house.

No night-time booms audited yet.

Felicity is boss when she’s here, though she doesn’t seem concerned to hold the whole clearing. It’s not yet clear if she will try to hold it (or part of it) as her breeding-ground. (Where is Greedy?)

Mystery Female and Audacious are still in orbit, though things will be quiet for a week or so because the figs are finished, and the lilly pilly isn’t ‘on’ yet.

Some other birds around, but it’ll be fewer for a few days, I think, ‘til there’s more food here. It’s been raining this week, and fresh pick is springing up everywhere – certainly within a fortnight there will be plenty for all the birds.

Alpha Chick is also in orbit. He still clearly liks to be around adult birds.

Saw him yesterday looking wistfully up into the lilly pilly trees. Other wild birds have also been checking it out. They remember such sources.

Supreme Emu

 

[Ashburnham]

Best crop of figs I have ever had here - not quite finished yet.

 

[kbgh]

My bet is still on Audacious and MF having a clutch this year.

Good to hear there is still plenty of activity even with the figs gone.

Sounds like Greedy found a new consort and she don't wanna be around the house clearing.

Any sign of Eric?

K.B.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Morning, K.B.!!

Well, I am happy to keep you posted as best I can.

To answer your questions (big sigh: no more data for the project):

Activity here: the clearing will be Emu Central for several more months, as the fresh pick comes on, and the lilly pillies start to bear heavily.

Eric: Eric’s home turf – where he breeds – is elsewhere. The pattern has been that he disappears in autumn, and reappears six or seven months later, with a clutch, just as the early plums come on. Just not enough data to figure this one out.

Greedy: I agree with you that Greedy has probably found a new consort; but I think if she wanted to be here, she’d be here. I ruckon she’ll turn up. Both F. and G. are strongly imprinted on the clearing here. Even though one of the two may be subservient at any given moment, it has never stopped the other from being here – standing disconsolately in the gums.




A Funny Thing: I have been to Oudman’s lately; but to my surprise, there are no birds over there. The fences haven’t been fixed, so there’s a pattern here that we didn’t comprehend.

How do we know? There are figs on the tree by the house: they’d have been eaten if birds were grazing there. There is a pile of peach stones under the tree, lying where the peaches rotted. If birds were in orbit, they’d have dispersed those seeds as they pecked at them. (An emu can swallow a stone with some flesh attached, but not a whole peach.) Also, no blessings at all.

Noddy is becoming tame, which is a very good sign that he’ll stay with F.

Heard booms last night.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Felicity and Noddy are roosting here tonight. That’s good. He’s becoming tame.

Third Bird is with them.

S.E.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

I finally convinced DH that Emu can be manageable and tame.

We have the acreage for a few and are putting in the fencing for cows now. Going to add corridors for the birds to have plenty of room to run the whole 5 acres

I am pretty excited, this has been a dream for me for 40 years, since I met my first emu at a farm in northern IN. Now, to find eggs or chicks

Please send any contacts or good, reliable breeders to me by PM, I have been reading and studying for years and am way past ready to make this real. I am so excited to finally have the opportunity to have them.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Here’s a little report:

an inch of rain has put us on the ‘winter side’ of autumn, readers. Fresh pick has sprung up everywhere. Figs are over; lilly pillies are coming on, but a little slowly. That’s relevant, guys, ‘cause it’s food and (I think)resident females that attract wild birds.

For the first time that we know of, there are two breeding-pairs ‘in orbit.’ The notion of ‘overlapping major and minor territories’ is making more sense. Felicity and Noddy visit every second or third day. Sometimes they just scoff down their double ration, then leave. Sometimes they graze around the clearing as well. Sometimes (if they are still here at dusk) they roost hard by, and turn up just minutes after dawn. (Felicity comes and quietly vocalises at the front of the house. She knows S.E. will come out if he is home.)

Meanwhile, though, Audacious and Mystery Female also come and go. Do the two pairs somehow ‘share’ the clearing? Is there tacit agreement? Felicity can drive M.F. and A. off, but they don’t stay drove-ed off. This is a common dynamic when one bird is only a little more powerful: the weaker birds won’t stand their ground, but they will only move away a short distance (sometimes only a matter of feet).

S.E. notes a thing about personality: Mystery Female has ‘known’ S.E. much longer than Noddy has; but Noddy has become tamer. Mystery Female remains very shy.

The Big Shmooze is yet to begin . . . I think. It’s Chapter 134 in Where Do They Go??. We have eight or ten weeks of ‘lazy observations’ to make of the birds ‘flocking up’ and moving about, including congregating or not congregating here.

(‘Lazy observations’? Walk into back bedroom. Look out window. Audacious is standing thirty feet away, scoffing lilly pillies – ‘lazy observations’!)

Do emu darken in breeding-season?

Saw wild birds over at Oudman’s the other day, and an unknown pair at dawn down at Meadow One.

The dawn vocalisation thing is just beginning; and, as S.E. has to hitch to town early early next Monday, he is already intrigued to see if he will hear any ‘conversations’ in the mile of bush between here and the river.

S.E.

 

[Ashburnham]

Good to hear from you mate.

My figs are still going, but the cold weather has slowed them down. Best season ever.


xxx M

 

[yinepu]

Here’s a little report:

an inch of rain has put us on the ‘winter side’ of autumn, readers. Fresh pick has sprung up everywhere. Figs are over; lilly pillies are coming on, but a little slowly. That’s relevant, guys, ‘cause it’s food and (I think)resident females that attract wild birds.

For the first time that we know of, there are two breeding-pairs ‘in orbit.’ The notion of ‘overlapping major and minor territories’ is making more sense. Felicity and Noddy visit every second or third day. Sometimes they just scoff down their double ration, then leave. Sometimes they graze around the clearing as well. Sometimes (if they are still here at dusk) they roost hard by, and turn up just minutes after dawn. (Felicity comes and quietly vocalises at the front of the house. She knows S.E. will come out if he is home.)

Meanwhile, though, Audacious and Mystery Female also come and go. Do the two pairs somehow ‘share’ the clearing? Is there tacit agreement? Felicity can drive M.F. and A. off, but they don’t stay drove-ed off. This is a common dynamic when one bird is only a little more powerful: the weaker birds won’t stand their ground, but they will only move away a short distance (sometimes only a matter of feet).

S.E. notes a thing about personality: Mystery Female has ‘known’ S.E. much longer than Noddy has; but Noddy has become tamer. Mystery Female remains very shy.

The Big Shmooze is yet to begin . . . I think. It’s Chapter 134 in Where Do They Go??. We have eight or ten weeks of ‘lazy observations’ to make of the birds ‘flocking up’ and moving about, including congregating or not congregating here.

(‘Lazy observations’? Walk into back bedroom. Look out window. Audacious is standing thirty feet away, scoffing lilly pillies – ‘lazy observations’!)

Do emu darken in breeding-season?

Saw wild birds over at Oudman’s the other day, and an unknown pair at dawn down at Meadow One.

The dawn vocalisation thing is just beginning; and, as S.E. has to hitch to town early early next Monday, he is already intrigued to see if he will hear any ‘conversations’ in the mile of bush between here and the river.

S.E.

she has her "pet human" trained well

I have to wonder if she thinks of you as being "tame" in emu standards...