Planet Rothschildi

[Tame Emu Guy]

Morning, K.B.!!

Hmmm . . . looks like I gotta start this post again.

One: I have learnt so much. Thirteen months ago – notwithstanding the five years here – I still couldn’t, for example, easily discern male and female calls. The observations were not coherent. So, we may now be able to find both nests, if there are nests, ‘cause we now have some idea of how to go about that.

Whatever, though, to have two males under observation would be an ornithological coup.

Two: here’s part of a pm I just sent:

Three wild birds, as bold as brass, have come out of the gums, and up to the lilly pilly.

The sound-recording conditions are perfect at this second: dead still. No noises except the emus and the other birds.

The three are – they’re still here – talking quietly to one another. The female is shy, and has moved away. I have been watching her from the bench in the garden, and trying to get her vocalisations on the crummy video on my mobile phone.

Quite clearly, she is trying to get the other two to leave the lilly pilly tree. She goes, ‘kook kook kook’ really quietly, three or four times, as she walks quietly along the edge of the gums. Then the male – still under the tree -- replies with a soft ‘guurk.’

Kook kook kook
Kook kook kook

Guuurk

Kook kook kook
Kook kook kook

Gone outside to watch: actually, they are so tame that it could be Mystery Female and Audacious and a third bird.

Three: yeh, it’s M.F. and A and another male!! I’m almost certain it’s a male. Here ya go, K.B. Here, finally, is a picture of Mystery Female.




All three birds really are in sassy mode today! Watch this, citizens: I’m gunna walk out and get a photo:

There! Here is Soggy Guy, a.k.a., Audacious. Yeh, K.B., I find the birds get pretty bedraggled lookin' at times:







Next: nah, shan’t tame any chicks that hatch here. I am already cogently aware that Felicity’s difficulties may be a result of the ‘hot dynamic’ of the house-clearing.

Moreover, it may be that, for as long as S.E. can ‘tread water,’ the consorts may follow the pattern of Boy Emu: they come here with a female who is ‘imprinted’ here; they incubate here; they leave with the clutch, for their own home turf.

Next: gee, guys, this really is tentative; but considering how poor so much data has transpired to be:

can anyone provide anecdotes about which one of a breeding-pair wears the trousers? Mr. Net him say, ‘Females fight for access to males.’ Well, we certainly see that the females are the ‘pivot’ of the species. For example, I see females with multiple males, but never vice versa.

However . . . right outside my door, I see a breeding-pair in which the male is clearly at least an equal partner (notwithstanding that this morning some other guy is hangin around . . . ). Audacious led the other two from the gums this morning. (Audacious by name; Audacious by nature.)

Next: the Dark Bird Thing: I think that I think that I see that the birds are darker at this time of year. Any observations on this? I don’t think that it’s ‘outside birds.’ I wonder if it’s hormonal, or it’s not real, just a trick of the autumn and winter light.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Change on The Planet

A small but noteworthy change here today. Audacious and Mystery Female and ‘Tag Along Guy’ were here almost all day. They are here now, late afternoon. They will likely roost hard by.

This means that, if there is any ‘cohesion’ at all to ‘Audacious Plus,’ they pose a greater threat to Felicity and Noddy: the more often Audacious Plus are here, the more likely that they’ll encounter Felicity.

It’s astounding, readers, how sassy the birds become at this time of year. Those of you who have been on the Planet for a while know how sudden this change has been. (The new garden is almost ready. The shot below, of M.F. and A., was taken from the bench. For a sick old emu, it doesn’t get any better. We’ll get scrappy reports as long as it’s this easy. Loud blues doesn’t faze the birds much at all.)




Here is Tag Along Guy. It’s amazing that this is the first time this emu has ever been to the clearing!




S.E.

 

[kbgh]

As usual great shots of the birds. Maybe MF wants a harem in reverse. One female many males instead of the human harem one male many females

I'll believe that you are not going to tame any chicks. HA HA HA HA HA

Sure you won't

Interesting theory on the coloration. It may very well be a sexual thing. Makes them more attractive and therefore more likely to attract a mate.

Kerry

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Fine clear dawn in the clearing.

You are about to be, via photos, in the middle of a territorial stoush – low key, but real and decisive.

S.E. was there because he knew that this would happen in the next few days. The quality of the photos is poor. However, it may well be the first time ever that anyone has seen this via photos, certainly there’s nothing like it on the Net. Here we go:

photo below: Felicity crossing the clearing from the Meadow-One side, with Noddy behind. She can see Audacious at the lilly pilly tree. She is vocalising. Some replies, low-to-mid range, both male and female, from Audacious Plus. That told S.E. that it was gonna be a low-key engagement. A bird like Greedy would have boomed hard enough to shake the farmhouse windows, and attacked at a run from fifty yards out:




Photo below: Audacious at the lilly pilly:



Photo below: Audacious and the gang, who have backed off as S.E. moved into the gap between lilly pilly and car port. Remember what I wrote yesterday about who wears the pants? Well, the bird that should be confronting Felicity -- Mystery Female -- is the one at the back on the left. The (unclear) dark and bedraggled bird on the right is Audacious:




Now, at this second, to S.E.’s intense annoyance, his Mickey Mouse camera lost the plot, and he missed some photos. Felicity charged Audacious at this point – but in a rather down-market way. I missed that. Here is F. returning to me/the wheat. Look how aggressive Audacious is. He is already back on Felicity’s case:





At this point, S.E. was crouched still on the ground. Felicity was wolfing wheat from her dish. To my amazement – whether it was the season or the conflict or both – both Audacious and Tag Along Guy began moving in on Felicity. This is an amazing shot. Tag Along Guy, a 99.99999999% wild emu, was, at this point, within twenty feet of me.

[And just for the record, guys, there is absolutely no danger in this. The value is that we got so close to wild birds interacting in a 98% natural way. There is no way on God’s earth that any of these emus is gonna attack a person.]

At this point, Felicity turned and drove the pair off. A short distance:




In the photo below, you can see that Tag Along Guy is back, and ‘holding station.’ That means that he is way way within the ‘personal space’ of the more powerful bird, but neither bird attacks. You may recall that Greedy did this to Felicity a whole lot at the end of last winter, when Greedy was whittling Felicity’s kingdom away. Felicity drove T.A.G. off at this point:





A few seconds later, Audacious moved in on Felicity (who, amazingly, was still on her knees, eating. Go figure.). There is nothing in the books about this: we are told that ‘females fight for males’ – well, that may be so. Do we assume that therefore the males are generally inactive in conflicts? Well, Noddy was, as this point, standing there like a potted palm; but Audacious was very clearly the leader of his push.




Next frame:

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Then, when all was safe, Noddy joined Felicity for brekkie.





'Kay, S.E. got to get into the garden. This morning's clash tells us what the status quo is. Felicity is clearly enough the dominant bird . . . but only by a point or two. Let's interimly call the house-clearing an 'interface zone,' held pretty much jointly by Felicity Plus and Audacious Plus.

Go, Felicity!

S.E.

 

[Ellamumu]

Great photos, I love your posts, how great to have these big birds just cruising through your yard, all we have is a bunch of wild turkeys, which are nice enough but no where near as cool as emus!

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

A ‘split’ house-clearing is a first, and can anyone guess what the upshot will be? Yup, neither of the males are likely to actually nest here. This means that we will have to track the nests down if we hope to observe the nesting.

And where is Greedy??

Indeed, the reason that I was up so early this morning was that I’d been ‘over the road’ before dawn, to see if I could get any info on whether F. and N. are based over there:



'And the highway looked like it never did/
Lord it looked so sweet and so clean'

'Blues for Baby and Me,' Elton John

​

Here is Meadow One this morning. There is a breeding-pair in sight, and ten kangaroos:




Here is a little of the scrub by the Meadow. It’s hard to love in summer, but beautiful in winter:



S.E.

 

[kbgh]

As usual great photos. You give us the feel of being there with you S.E. and I for one love your observations and descriptions.

I do envy you. Seeing these magnificent birds as you do, that is through your eyes and writings, is just amazing. Wish we could visit just once to both meet you and experience first hand what you do. Alas all we get to observe are the crows and wild turkeys. And the dam white tail deer. K.B.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

First upload of good pictures from Planet Rothschildi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the first ever decent photo of Felicity Emu. Note the clay on her feet: she has been drinking at the dam. Note also that she has clay all over her left haunch. S.E. has no idea, but you learn to look for little things like this because they are all tiny clues to the birds’ movements and behaviour. Things get stuck in their feathers. They turn up with injuries. They turn up dripping wet on hot days. It’s all data:




This was a hard photo to get. Pet-emu owners are lucky lucky lucky in that they see their birds sitting and lying – not so with wild birds!! All three of these birds were sitting when I spotted them. By the time I got the camera, they were as you see them. These chicks are far from tame. I betcha you can’t find a picture anywhere on the Net of a wild chick on its hocks. It was a 100 degrees when this photo was taken, and the dat on the photo gives us data on the age of the chicks. All Australian-winter chicks here, hatching in July, August, and September:




S.E.

 

[kbgh]

Quote: Very handsome critter. Mud on her hocks? Female humans say mud is good for the complextion, maybe that works for female emu too.