Planet Rothschildi

[Tame Emu Guy]

[S.E. on half speed.]

There’s a track through The 500 that, for whatever reason, is free of leaves. So, you can walk quietly through The 500. I did it today, in the heat, to try for sightings, rather than to observe. The trick is to almost drift along. (Windless days are the best.)
So, the pasture no longer looks like paradise; but the birds are still there. I saw a pair, then a clutch of four or five black-head chicks, then a flock of four, including an adolescent.

Some blessings now contain a tiny seed – plenty of them, but tiny. I haven’t identified the plant.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Let’s have different names for the seasons. Let’s call them ‘Season of Sitting Cold and Wet in The Dripping Gums until The Chicks Hatch’ and then ‘Season of Gorging on Fresh Pick’ etc.

Today is the first day of the Season of Wild Emus Cruising from Pasture to Pasture via The House-Clearing.

Let’s call Speckles’ consort ‘Sarah.’ They just ‘came through.’ Speckles is the game one. I am quite sure that their ‘conversation’ – ‘Kook, kook,’ “Gruuuunt” -- meant:
‘No, I don’t like it here!’ – that’s Sarah. ‘Oh, it’ll be okay.’ That’s Speckles, who is under the plum tree. Sarah is so shy (wild) that she would only ‘skirt out of’ the gums into the clearing. So Speckles is grazing but she is not. No value in that for her.

[I have finally got a really good look at Sarah. From side on, she is a classic emu: perfect white collar, then the curve of black black feathers above that, then the area of steel-shiny skin at the top of her neck. She seems to be a fine bird; and that makes sense: Greedy attracted Speckles, and Speckles attracted Sarah.]

So, after Speckles had a five-minute scrounge under the plum tree, they moved on; but I was very lucky to spot them grazing about eighty yards away, down by the dam, on a tiny ‘pasture,’ where they stayed for some time.

[I wonder why the birds sometimes spend long periods – literally hours – in one spot, yet on another occasion move almost relentlessly from place to place.]

So S. and S. shifted across three pastures in about a half an hour – and ‘pasture’ warrants a mention: I think I see the birds happily tucking into the grass seeds on the dying stalks. S. and S. spent some time grazing just a couple of feet away from green grass.

The plum tree was no great shakes for Speckles because Eric Plus have truly hammered it. In fact, Eric Plus missed feeds last night and this morning. That tells us that he is shifting his focus. I’ve learned something: at one time the birds scoff up all the unripe lower-level fruit – literally as far up as they can jump -- then they return later to scrounge the falling ripe fruit.

[Eric and the chicks have three times gone into the backyard and not been able to get out. He’s after the plums that fall on the inside of the fence. I’m not sure if I have to close all the gates.]

They’re back, four hours later. That means they’ve grazed at five pastures in five hours.

Supreme Emu

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Supreme Emu is shocked to report that Bad People with no Respect for Rental Properties came in the night and chopped a big panel out of the back-yard fence in order that small feathery people not injure themselves. He will, of course, chain himself to the front door of the real-estate office to protest to this disrespect of corporate property.

Meanwhile, I found a single blessing of Eric’s that contained 112 apricot and peach stones. Now, remember that I posted a photo of Wally the Weakie’s pooh? over by the National Park? Last winter we noted the great difference in the diet of the alpha and non-alpha birds. Well, here’s another datum. In the brutal evolutionary sense, this is bottom-line stuff: better fed equals alpha bird. Alpha bird equals better fed.

S.E.

 

[Calla]

How awful..Supreme Emu , I thought they were all GOODIES in Australia lol
Could they be offsprings from 'dumped' kids from UK in olden days ? lol

Could Apricot and Plum stones not harm intestines ? they are so sharp....good thing they passed them, hope all of them...I would make Jam for them and serve with bread on a platter ...they would love it.....and really have a sweet tooth.

Calla

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Nah, Calla. The fruit stones seem smoother than the stones that the birds randomly gobble up.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

It’s now warm enough to be out at first light, so I tried something new this morning. Went down to the ‘first meadow*,’ in which direction I could hear a wild bird calling. Couldn’t really move further because the vigilance network is too sharp. There are lots of birds and kangaroos there; but the air is clear, which makes for great vision through the binos.
[Baby kangaroo – ‘joey’ – bounding around in a circle, shadow-boxing with its mum, absolutely thrilled to be alive.]
We hope to add snippets of info about how the birds get up to in the early morning. It would be great to track down – by its quiet dawn calls -- a wild bird at its roost.


*Geography: there are two pastures – ‘Meadow One’ and ‘Meadow Two’ – to the west. The first is just a hundred yard away, and the second about another hundred. Both about a hundred yards square. So, that’s three in a little row, then it’s only about two hundred yards further down to the fence of The 500. We’re trying to comprehend just how the birds roam about at different times of year.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Shocking Oversimplifications (One)​

What if . . .

the ‘low point’ of the emu year is breeding-season, when so many males are inactive. Emu society is most ‘fragmented’ at that point (with the males with clutches then hanging out in the nurseries).

Then, by the end of spring, the birds are (as the pastures dwindle?) moving about more together. By the middle of summer, which is when I think I remember seeing birds ‘passing through’ the house-clearing, the birds are moving about in flocks (and if it becomes an ‘emergency seasons,’ they’ll hit the road to survive).

Then, it’s autumn, and ‘flocking up’ time, when mates are chosen -- so more interaction is fitting.

Then it's winter again.

What do you think?

S.E.

 

[Calla]

S.E.
Don't understand this: they’ll hit the road to survive).
The more I read here, it seems to be the reverse, upside down lol you Down Under have Spring into Summer, poor Lonely me over here.... talking just about my few Babies, lol We are approaching Winter, after a bad Summer and Autumn...more rain then ever, but my Emus and Rheas love it, lol

Good News! I saw Rosie being mated today.... yuppie! all lovey - dovey !
Thought a bit early ? but then I don't stay up all night.

Calla

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Morning, Calla.

All the books say (‘All the books say . . . ”) that in very bad seasons, emus ‘migrate’ in search of food, that they roam hundreds of miles, following storms, to get to fresh pick.

Watch ‘desert emu’ on Youtube. When country like that gives out on you, you hit the trail or die. I’ve been out in country like that – 110 in the shade, 115, 120, and hotter in some places.

Hillard’s book on the Pitjantjatjara people of the Tanami Desert has anecdotes about how they caught emus, so there are emus out there. No muckin’ around, boys and girls, that territory is among the three or four most inhospitable places on this planet.
(If anyone is interested in texts on this sort of country, ask me. Several of them are no less than fascinating. It’s a long story, but a couple of aboriginal people who eloped into the desert were found living in a tribal state in 1975. They might have seen commercial airliners pass across the sky at height, otherwise, they lived in exactly the same way as aboriginal Australians sixty or eighty thousand years ago.)

The blurb on the clip says the birds are juvenile, but they don’t seem to be; and if you are still interested at that point, check ‘emus in Denham western Australia.’ The birds in the desert look like mine. Check ‘when aussie emu’s go bad’ – that footage was taken up the road from me. Those birds must be rothschildi. Note how dark and feathery and ‘tooshy’ they are – that is, how much of a tail-feather ‘toosh’ they have. The male on the street in Denham clearly looks different – woodwardi? The bird in the desert, which you’d think is woodwardi, looks more like a rothschildi; but boy!! we sure haven’t figured this one out yet!!

Next: I think, Calla – the U.S. guys understand this better – that it’s the length of days that triggers breeding. Breeding here is sparked by the shorter days as winter approaches (May). Breeding in the northern hemisphere is sparked by the shorter days as winter approaches (November?).

Finally, perhaps we might not think of it as ‘Rosie being mated.’ Emus are gyne-centric. Thus, ‘Rosie allows herself to be mated by . . . ’ It’s not a quibble. Understanding the species pivots on this fact. So, just yesterday I spoke of how the parenting birds spend spring in the ‘nursery.’ In most species of birds, that would be the female-plus-clutch, and the males might be roaming elsewhere. In respect of emus, it’s male-plus-clutch.




A ‘roost blessing’ is different. (Details upon request.) The birds certainly stand. You can tell from the blessings that they have been on different pastures the day before.

Watching the dawn spazzy dance is a great way to start the day. Eric just has a stretch.

The chicks trotted out into the house-clearing, and started whipping the heads off the first plants they came to.

Supreme Emu

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Oh look! A wild emu chick coming past my lounge room door! Eat your heats out.

S.E.