Planet Rothschildi

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hi, K.B.!

Sadly, we shan’t ever manage to gather in my garden; but the point is that I’d be delighted to see your reactions. Okay, emus are strange, goofy critters; but that is not what strikes you first when you see them in the wild (well okay, still a bit).

What strikes you -- at least if you observe patiently over time -- is how well adapted they are. It’s one thing to note how fast they are in miles per hour, for example; but it’s quite another when you’re walking through the bush, and get a glimpse of a wild bird, then . . . where did it go?

Gone. Vanished.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Okay!!

You may remember that Felicity declined to let me watch her roost. Last winter, I tried several times. In deep deep dusk, after grazing until the last moment, she would walk quietly into a row of gums just behind the fig tree. However, if I tried to watch her, she’d just stand there until I left here alone. (I take great pains to respect the birds here. It might sound silly, but the ‘thread’ is and always has been slender. The house-clearing must register in their minds as a safe place. Full stop. That was why I was such a fusspot about the idea of tackling Greedy when she was suffering from the tick. That was the first and only time I have ever violated their trust. Fat lot of good it did me!)


Now, I note here that I have felt as though observing the chicks here in the house-clearing was a little too easy, as though it were a cop-out or something – but that’s just silly; and I shall start to observe them at length.

I started this afternoon, and something amazing has already happened. After watching them graze for about a half an hour (details later), the three of them began drifting into the gums. Then, one chick turned at right angles, and started forging through the litter. It was clearly leading. I decided to watch, and managed to pull far enough away so that I could just see Eric moving from aisle to aisle. However, just seven aisles into the gums – no more than ten minutes after the sun had left the house-clearing – they plonked down to roost!!

So, as far as I can tell from the Internet, the last formal observation made on emu-roosting was the year I was born. Right this second, as it’s falling dark this quiet Sunday evening, Eric Plus is sitting just a hundred yards from the keyboard. I will check – right now, actually . . .

yup!! They’re there!

Now, I am almost certain that they are roosting there for the first time; but it doesn’t greatly matter. Tomorrow morning, after they emerge for brekkie, I can examine the spot. Will we find no blessings? One or two? Or six or eight? Whatever, if I can repeat this quality of observation four or five times, we’ll have a rock-solid bit of data. (The ground should tell me if they have roosted there before.)

The ‘connection’ here is wonderful. The two negative aspects of these observations are (a) that I feed these birds, and (b) that they do pay some attention to my proximity. Otherwise, the data are great. The amount of wheat they get is not enough to ‘pin them’ to the house-clearing. Eric may be ‘tame’; but the chicks are wild.

At this point, here’s an idea I’ve had for a while:

we should be wary of the terms ‘wild’ and ‘tame.’ They are not nearly accurate enough. I spent hundreds of days taming my birds, and I succeeded – but within context. They won’t stand still to be patted. Conversely, I use the term ‘wild’ to describe birds like Speckles, which come to the house-clearing to graze and scrounge wheat; but he’s not ‘wild.’

What we could do, then, when we need to be particular, is use a notation like: ‘tame(15)’ or ‘tame(2).’ The first might describe a bird like Eric, who won’t eat from your hand; but who will approach you to within about six feet if you are sitting stock still. The second might be – and I noticed this over four years ago – a wild bird that will not raise its head from grazing when a car passes a hundred yards away, which is the case for plenty of birds around here. Those same birds would burst into flight – they do burst into flight – when I hove into sight. We might, in a general sense, see them as ‘wild.’ However, they aren’t, in the same way that the kangaroos here will often pay little or no attention to me if I pass them at fifty or eighty feet. That lack of fear is also a ‘tameness.’ So, Felicity is perhaps ‘tame(50),’ and Greedy is perhaps ‘tame(45),’ and Eric is ‘tame(25),’ and the chicks are perhaps ‘tame(10)’; and gee, some of you guys must have birds that are ‘tame(90)’ or more.

Supreme Emu

 

[kbgh]

Your views on "tameness" for the emu's makes sense.

While here in the states, we obviously don't have emu's, but we do have wildlife that could be categorized with the same degree of "tameness". We have whitetail deer that spend a lot of time in our yard and I can approach the to within 10 to 20' at times. Are they "tame", sort of. Some Deer will along the roads can be oblivious to cars while other spook and become buzzard dinner. Tame vs wild? Even our local black bear population. Some visit households on a regular basis looking for a handout, are they "tame" others attack pets and humans THEY ARE DEFINITELY "WILD" just living in urban and semi-rural areas.

Not hi-jacking your thread mark, just validating your observations on DEGREES of TAMENESS as it applies to a variety of critters.

"Tameness" is how we evaluate it.

One definition of tame is :

Quote:

I feel that your emu's fall into this category, and as such your numerical idea works great.

Just a few thoughts and ideas for you Mark.

Kerry

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Wonderful!!

It’s 4:24 a.m. Got coffee. It’s light enough in the clearing to read a newspaper headline, and three or four species of birds are singing; but the aisle in question is a block of darkness with a sliver of ‘dawn orange’ at one end. The Observation Cushion is in place, though. Let’s go take another peek.

4:57, back in the farmhouse:

Observation:

Eric got up. (Defecate?) Then sat down. Stayed sitting down for a while. (And there’s a wild female calling about two hundred yards to the west.) Then Eric got up again. So did the chicks. Eric had a big stretch. Then the chicks had a little stretch, and then just lost the plot with spontaneous-joy spazzy dancing. Jumping up off the ground, kicking their legs out to the side, running in little circles. (No vocalisations)
They were still doing it when they came out into the clearing – I’ve always thought that, mating-function notwithstanding, the spazzy dance is a a ‘good-morning stretch.’ Eric Plus having breakfast.

‘Kay. Got more coffee. Let’s go check for blessings:

Immelmann was exactly right -- about the blessings. I was exactly wrong: sixteen blessings, all clearly from last night (including the one on the top, with about fifty apricot stones in it). They are even – I thought this over near the National Park – a sort of ‘night-time blessing,’ that is, rather long and coiled. It even seems that the observation of my farmer-neighbour, who said that wild birds sleep breast to breast, might also be right.

[“Daddy, that man’s examining our poohs!!” ‘Yes, Junior . . . well, quite frankly, if he’s keeps giving us grade-A wheat by the handful morning and night seven days a week, I don’t care if he takes our poohs home for a souvenir!’]

Eric’s blessings are all in a pile on one side, and the chicks’ blessings are all on the other side, most in a small area.

Otherwise: no, I don't think that Eric Plus got up six to eight times last night and made their way through the gums to the house-clearing to graze, and returned; and certainly there is no more than a skerrick of grass in the actual aisle of gums itself, so 'grazing' in the aisle would have been a dead loss in the evolutionary sense.

Supreme Emu

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

It is Speckles! (Quite distinctive markings – speckles – on his neck.) He has a female with him, but she just slinks around down behind the sheep yards.

And Speckles isn’t going to tackle Eric. It seems that having chicks in tow doesn’t affect Eric’s style. Speckles didn’t even square off – I wonder how he knew? – and withdrew, rumbling at length.

The chicks remain gorgeous; but they seem to be moulting as they pass to black-head phase, and they look . . . scruffy. They have become quite unconcerned to have me near them. I can approach to about twenty feet, at which range I can get a great view of them through the binos. What I thought was an injury on Omega is just an advance patch of black-head-phase feathers.


The chicks graze at three distinct levels. They tear at plants right at ground level, perhaps even pulling small plants up roots and all. They graze at a ‘mid-level,’ that is, cropping the clover and suchlike. They graze at head height, snatching off the heads of flowers and the like. They are also now chasing their share of the fallen fruit. They try and try to swallow the smallest pieces, and you can see the lump in their throat for a half a minute after they get each one in.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

 

[kbgh]

Cool pic

I'm guessing the chicks?

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

The chicks love to be close, K.B. It's hard (better camera, better camera, better camera) to catch them sitting down.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Dawn Skirmish Live (S.E. ‘embedded’ under apricot tree):

# Dawn plus half an hour: feed Eric Plus
# Hear female. It’s Felicity
# Greet and feed F. (on other side of house)
# Felicity charges off into gums
# Eric Plus begin grazing under peach tree (on Felicity’s side)
# Felicity re-appears with lovely big male in tow
# F. postures at Eric from edge of gums; male hangs back (oriented away from clearing); F. advances, and grazes under apricot tree
# Eric advances on Felicity; she withdraws
# F. advances again
# Eric puts head down and charges, and to my astonishment readers, one of the chicks led the attack!! As Eric ran across the clearing, one chick stayed put, the other ran ahead of Eric, and attacked Felicity* – well, I didn’t actually see that bit; but the chick arrived about fifteen feet ahead of Eric. Felicity withdrew (story of Felicity’s life . . . )
# F.’s male still oriented away from clearing. I realise that there are other birds nearby.
# F. and male foray to south and west to confront other birds.

What is worth noting is that (a) Eric Plus got to graze almost the whole time, (b) Felicity expended a lot of effort for one fallen apricot, (c) neither the male with Felicity or the unseen wild birds got anything.

I’ve waited a few days to be sure of what’s going on. It’s a change of ‘(wild) emu season,’ and we should have names for these seasons. I’ve been too ill to care for some days; haven’t been away from the farmhouse; but even here, the change is apparent. Firstly, the pasture is changing/shrinking. The field of little yellow flowers that you saw in photos is finished. That fresh ‘green pick’ has taken a hammering – though some of it already has semi-formed seeds on it. The moss in the aisles of gums is dead. (Gotta go and check the Top Corner. It’ll be pretty much finished as a ‘lush’ pasture.) If you could see time-lapse photos taken from a mile above the farm house, you’d be startled; and this ‘pre-historic swamp thing’ that I’ve been raving about would be very clear to you: already the only remaining large bodies of lush pasture are on the low-lying open areas like the swamp paddock and the corridor and the two meadows behind the house-clearing.

I wonder if the males with clutches have ventured from The 500? I guess they have, or they are doing so about now – though I am yet to see a clutch beside Eric’s.

Next: the birds seem to be on the move again. You recall that the weeks following B.E.’s departure saw very few wild birds here. Well, it’s early days yet; but a wild pair passed through two days ago; Speckles and New Female passed through; and Felicity Plus is here today.

This morning at dawn I saw Eric and the chicks engaged in a spirited family spazzy dance, all three of them charging wildly about the house-clearing. I think there’s an aspect of mating-behaviour in spazzy dances, but I think it’s also just a morning stretch. Imagine how you would stretch if you had no arms. It would be pretty much a spazzy dance.

Supreme Emu

* 'Take that, ankle! and a peck fcr you, shin! I stomp my tiny foot on you, three-inch talon!!'

 

[kbgh]

Could you be seeing more "wild" birds becase they are migrating from feeding ground to feeding ground and your farm clearing is "in the way"? You have said that a lot of the flowers and other foods are already finished for the season.

Interesting observations about Felicity's consort. You would have thought that he might have been brave enough to venture in a lil closer, but perhaps Eric was intimidating even though there was no direct contact between them. Funny to hear the the chick was showing aggression at such an early stage.

Kerry