Planet Rothschildi

[kathyinmo]

Can you email the pictures? If you can, you could send them to me and I will upload them for you.
My email is kbonham822 at AOL.com if you want to try it.

 

[kbgh]

Glad to see Alpha chick is thriving.

Sounds to me like Mystery female and or the Extra Bird have their sights set on Audacious. (More power to both of them, thriving as he does with one eye, Audacious must have some powerful genes he'd make a good catch.)

K.B.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Morning, K.B. Reports to follow.

Yah, I think Audacious and Mystery Female are a logical pair. But I don’t think Audacious is in E.F.’s league. (Readers, look up the term ‘assortative mating.’)

Still, I agree that Audacious is a good catch. It would be worthwhile to study him, to see if his disability is compensated for by strategies.

S.E. has been struck by the evidences of emu intelligence that are discernible in the posts of the BYC breeders – that is, of the captive birds. Well, Audacious is one case in which the possibility of developing intelligence in the wild is clearly evident.

We got a suspicion that many people would guffaw at this notion, but rraaasssppberrry to them!

Alpha Chick??

A gorgeous-though-soggy morsel of handsome emu-ness just cruised past the picture window. It's Alpha, looking for brekkie; and S.E. is not going to feed him.

It’s a hard call, campers. Trust me, I find Alpha just as gorgeous as any other BYC person finds their chicks gorgeous.

But you know my thoughts on this. So, as of this second, Alpha Chick is officially on its own.

Supremely Heartless Emu

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Morning, Citizens!

Two days left of observations left – but not today and tomorrow. We’ll wait for, say, a fortnight, for a day with – tee hee – ‘high traffic,’ and S.E. will finish up then. Goodness, I do so enjoy this work; but I just gotst to re-orient me. Che sera.

Portrait of a Mating-Season Female​

‘Pairing-up’ has been in progress, readers, since December. Our Data File (‘Mating-Season in Australia’) tells us that S.E. observed a mating at the end of March last year. Thus, the early-maters (confident, established pairs? Like Eric and Mrs. Eric?) could be laying eggs within three weeks!!

So, Extra Female is, like Felicity, a little behind the curve. She is here now, rapidly acclimatising herself to the house-clearing – I just saw her within feet of the back fence.

She roosted here last night. I heard a female calling during the night. It surely was her.

Yesterday, we had ten hours of intermittent observations of this bird. She scoffed a few figs; but, notwithstanding the presence of Yummy fresh pick a mere sixty feet away, under the apricot tree, she choose to ‘hold her station.’

She seems superior to Audacious. He seems to stay out of her way.

But let’s back up just a little: E.F. arrived yesterday as the third member of what we call a ‘shmooze,’ a group of birds moving opportunistically around at this time of year. The other two birds moved on some hours later; but not E.F.

S.E. suggests that she sees the fig-tree ‘intersection’ as a prime location at this second: there’s food here (if she wants it). There’s water here. Wild birds aplenty pass by. She is not competing. Good spot!!

Now think about why S.E. is always obsessively calculating the equation of ‘which birds are present, and what their respective ranks are.’ If, for example, Eric turned up this morning, E.F. would be out of here in a micro-second. She’s not gonna risk injury and waste energy fighting with Eric. Her task is to be available to secure a consort.

To that end, E.F. stayed 95% of her time here yesterday in an area a half the size of a tennis court. She vocalised periodically, but not strongly. It struck S.E. that she seemed not to be vocalising to any birds in particular, but almost out of pure instinct. Of course, her booms can be heard at a distance; but if she was intent on communicating over a distance, she’d crank it up. We don’t know why she doesn’t.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

10:22:

Dark Couple just arrived from the south. To S.E.’s amazement, E.F. and Audacious co-operated to drive them off, meeting them well in advance, no vocalisations, and drove them ‘gently’ out of sight. Why does it mean? (Was K.B. right?)
Now, E.F. has moved into the clearing. S.E. was on the stool in the New Garden, close close close to the fig tree, and – eat your hearts out, guys!! – got to watch E.F. unselfconsciously preen and vocalise right in front of him. She is already about ‘tame[10]’ – she’ll ignore you from fifty feet.

D.C. back, and holding station just by the tree. E.F. is holding station in the open opposite. Audacious is ‘working’ the tree. Alpha Chick is walking curiously around, and he is cropping at the fresh pick, not pecking. So, All Emus now officially in Winter Mode.

Kathyinmo is gonna try to upload photos for us. All is techno-dysfuntion at my end.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

[S.E. unwell. Brief reports only.]

Felicity is here, with a consort!! Big stoush between Felicity Plus and E.F. E.F. won the first round. S.E. didn’t see if it was F. or Consort who went to bat.

Seven birds in play now, and Alpha Chick on the sideline.

Will spend just a half an hour watching.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

1:27

Major conflict raging . . . but, in usual emu style, in slow motion.

Alpha has made itself scarce (If I were him, I’d be hiding under the fig tree itself).

The six contending birds are manoeuvring over an area at least three-hundred-yards square. Extra Female has outright won the first round.

[Felicity has ignored food. Second time ever. S.E.’s logic looks good: busy with breeding. Haven’t seen E.F. grazing either.]

As is usual, the birds on the second rung (Felicity and Temporary Consort) went after the birds on the third rung (Dark Couple). They drove them, with plentiful vocalisations on both sides, in an arc of several hundred yards around the east and south.

Got a really good look at E.F. She has what looks like a stripe of pink paint down the front of one leg. Don’t know if it’s new, or I just didn’t notice it. Don’t know if it’s an injury, or just appears to be. Would a serious scrape there show pink, guys? Anyone know?)

E.F. is strutting her stuff in front of the fig. Audacious (who is a small bird. I just saw him from quite close through the back-bedroom window. He’s little bigger than a yearling!) has snuck up the side of the house, and is hurriedly scoffing up the wheat I threw down for Felicity, rather like a soldier bolting a can of bully beef during a lull in the fighting.

[It’s warm enough to be outside. S.E. is uni-ocular, but that’s working. I’ll see if I can get a good view of the next round.]

If Felicity (and T.C.) can’t wrest control of the house-clearing from Extra Female forthwith, she’s in big trouble (I think it’s F. fighting, but no observation yet); and the usual logic of emu power-plays is that the first blows struck decide the issue – i.e., she’s already lost.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

2008 (S.E. arrives}: Eric is dominant, ‘double-alpha.’ Already scarred. Age unknown.

2009: S.E. starts taming Eric’s 2008 clutch.

2010: late this year, Greedy, Eric’s chick, displaces Eric in spectacular public fashion

2011: Greedy remains Number One. Eric is close contender when present. Felicity lives on the margins in the most literal manner.

2012: Greedy breeds with Boy Emu. Greedy gets ill from tick bite. Felicity displaces Greedy. Felicity treats Greedy as Greedy had long treated her.

Late 2012: Eric arrives with 2012 clutch. Felicity stands her ground. Eric displaces her with a single swipe.

Two months later: we witness an amazing one-off by ‘Foreign Bird,’ who waltzes into the clearing, reduces Eric to grovelling on his belly in ten minutes, and then just leaves -- !!??

2013: Greedy absent for a good while. (Wow!! How long is it since we saw Greedy?) Felicity is second to Eric, but dominant over all other birds who pass through,

though she clearly reveals some ‘power reticence.’

2013, February: Eric Plus moves on. Felicity finds herself ‘dominant by default.’

2013 March: mating-season warfare begins. Extra Female arrives while Felicity is absent seeking consort; sets up shop. Felicity returns; gets displaced.

2013: 19/3: Extra Female dominant, ‘holding station’ while seeking consort, apparently.

What is noteworthy in all this, readers, is that Felicity’s period of dominance was a sort of accident – hence S.E. not shutting up about the power-plays at the end of last winter. Is there such a thing as ‘emu psychology’? Greedy can flog Felicity any old time if she (Greedy) is well. Thus, it was a mystery to S.E. why Felicity was able to keep Greedy cowed all through spring. ‘Psychology’??

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

[S.E.’s Internet is being . . . re-thingy-ated. Photo fest on Friday.]

Dusk is falling. The head of the last player has disappeared into the scrub down the back – Extra Female.

There was a male. I guess Audacious.

All other players decamped earlier.

[Deep sigh]

[Deep sigh]

Felicity is evolutionary toast.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

[S.E. holed up in winter bunker-bedroom.]

As fast as I can type:

town today: datum: some fathers are still parenting. Saw dark male and four beautiful dark chicks in a paddock by the road. My driver, my farmer-neighbour, knows the property, and sait that they are smart birds in that the paddock has been ‘well-developed’ with fertilisers and trace elements. Lovely birds. First time ever that I've seen a clutch from a vehicle!

S.E. missed an episode yesterday after he posted: Dark Couple turned up at dusk dusk almost, but E.F. pushed them off.

Today, the status holds: Felicity and others, no appearance. Alpha Chick sneakin’ about in the nooks and crannies. (I truly truly ruckon we can cease worrying about Alpha Chick. It may be so that many chicks of its age would be in peril on their own . . . but clearly not Alpha.)

Extra Female and Audacious have been here all day, I suppose – they are here now; they were here at dawn. E.F. is exhibiting low-level mating-season behaviour, and tolerating Audacious, who, as usual, shows his talent in keeping out of the way.

S.E.