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- #271
Clutch of Seven Wild Chicks!!
We weren’t even gonna take the binos . . .
having decided to walk just down to the top of the corridor and back, I hesitated at the door, then went back and grabbed the binos.
Went you walk to the corridor, guys – to the ‘top’ end, the close end – you always blow it because of the way in which you come upon the pasture itself. You come around a corner, and bam! you’re in sight.
What you can do (that is, short of making a slow and disciplined approach), is prop at the ‘corner,’ and have a look to see if anything is visible on the section that has come into view.
This we did, and saw a gorgeous still-stripy wild chick drift between two tufts of reeds. Then a second. Then a third.
S.E. moved forward, and risked a peek: male and six chicks. He started crawling on hands and knees, with the binos strap in his teeth.
Head up. Still there.
Crawl some more. Head up. Gone!
At this point, I was already writing this text in my head. However, to check if there were other wild birds further down the corridor, I stepped out into the open.
And sank back to the ground: they were still there.
Crawl and crawl on elbows and knees, with burrs assaulting me fiercely from the thighs down, and the fine sharp smell of feral mint in my nostrils.
Got to a tree. Head up. Still there.
I wasn’t really feeling well, and not quite up to a long stalk, so I decided to move, crouching, out to a pile of logs that stands in the open (We sometimes sit there at dusk, readers. You can see right down to the swamp paddock over the fence.).
This I did, and blow me down . . . they were still there! Every time I looked up, it seemed they were all looking the other way.
So, believe it or not, I snuggled down into a spot in the logs, re-focussed the binos, and sat to watch.
Eventually, the male saw me. Here is the formal report:
Wild clutch of seven chicks. Best observation ever of wild chicks in open pasture. Fine male, rather skinny. Chicks in late-late-stripy stage (??!). Upon seeing me, the male ran, stopped, propped, and flared (showing a fine white chest of feathers). The chicks moved away.
As S.E. has noted on previous observations of parent-with-clutch, there was no panicked flight. The chicks moved at a smart pace (they were just ‘leggy’ enough to get along well).
The male propped and flared again. The chicks drifted to a stop a short distance behind him. Overall, the male stopped to flare three times, and the group moved smartly from my sight, behind some reeds (big tufts, guys, about four feet). No vocalisations heard, though I was some distance upwind.
Please recall that Once Upon A Time, way way back at the start of the winter thread, S.E. noted that All Is Wild Conjecture Here. If this is an error, I will amend it.
That is, it seems so much more natural to ‘think aloud’ as we go, and refine positions piece by piece. My point here is that when I was down on the corridor some weeks ago, I brashly announced that emus weren’t grazing on it. Clearly that is not so. Did the rain bring up some fresh pick? Is there tucker there that the chicks can easily get? (Were they taking their blessings with them in little plastic bags?)
Whatever, when S.E. has the house-cleaning in hand, he’ll go down and re-examine the corridor. (Last time, S.E. was wearing an eyepatch, daggy old women’s tracky daks, a ragged shirt, a Huckleberry-Finn straw hat, and green plastic garbage bags taped above his knees (to repel the burrs). Let’s hope the Psychiatric Emergency Team isn’t out looking for victims to boost their quota!)
S.E.
We weren’t even gonna take the binos . . .
having decided to walk just down to the top of the corridor and back, I hesitated at the door, then went back and grabbed the binos.
Went you walk to the corridor, guys – to the ‘top’ end, the close end – you always blow it because of the way in which you come upon the pasture itself. You come around a corner, and bam! you’re in sight.
What you can do (that is, short of making a slow and disciplined approach), is prop at the ‘corner,’ and have a look to see if anything is visible on the section that has come into view.
This we did, and saw a gorgeous still-stripy wild chick drift between two tufts of reeds. Then a second. Then a third.
S.E. moved forward, and risked a peek: male and six chicks. He started crawling on hands and knees, with the binos strap in his teeth.
Head up. Still there.
Crawl some more. Head up. Gone!
At this point, I was already writing this text in my head. However, to check if there were other wild birds further down the corridor, I stepped out into the open.
And sank back to the ground: they were still there.
Crawl and crawl on elbows and knees, with burrs assaulting me fiercely from the thighs down, and the fine sharp smell of feral mint in my nostrils.
Got to a tree. Head up. Still there.
I wasn’t really feeling well, and not quite up to a long stalk, so I decided to move, crouching, out to a pile of logs that stands in the open (We sometimes sit there at dusk, readers. You can see right down to the swamp paddock over the fence.).
This I did, and blow me down . . . they were still there! Every time I looked up, it seemed they were all looking the other way.
So, believe it or not, I snuggled down into a spot in the logs, re-focussed the binos, and sat to watch.
Eventually, the male saw me. Here is the formal report:
Wild clutch of seven chicks. Best observation ever of wild chicks in open pasture. Fine male, rather skinny. Chicks in late-late-stripy stage (??!). Upon seeing me, the male ran, stopped, propped, and flared (showing a fine white chest of feathers). The chicks moved away.
As S.E. has noted on previous observations of parent-with-clutch, there was no panicked flight. The chicks moved at a smart pace (they were just ‘leggy’ enough to get along well).
The male propped and flared again. The chicks drifted to a stop a short distance behind him. Overall, the male stopped to flare three times, and the group moved smartly from my sight, behind some reeds (big tufts, guys, about four feet). No vocalisations heard, though I was some distance upwind.
Please recall that Once Upon A Time, way way back at the start of the winter thread, S.E. noted that All Is Wild Conjecture Here. If this is an error, I will amend it.
That is, it seems so much more natural to ‘think aloud’ as we go, and refine positions piece by piece. My point here is that when I was down on the corridor some weeks ago, I brashly announced that emus weren’t grazing on it. Clearly that is not so. Did the rain bring up some fresh pick? Is there tucker there that the chicks can easily get? (Were they taking their blessings with them in little plastic bags?)
Whatever, when S.E. has the house-cleaning in hand, he’ll go down and re-examine the corridor. (Last time, S.E. was wearing an eyepatch, daggy old women’s tracky daks, a ragged shirt, a Huckleberry-Finn straw hat, and green plastic garbage bags taped above his knees (to repel the burrs). Let’s hope the Psychiatric Emergency Team isn’t out looking for victims to boost their quota!)
S.E.
