- Thread starter
- #481
Well, in the next post, then . . .
We are down to ‘two days’ – whatever that means; but the Project is almost finished – a year of data of the best quality I could manage.
Here is a last little Serious Bit:
how much can we deduce from observation – and I include even a single pet bird at your home?
S.E. has been delighted and disappointed by how much more he began to learn as he really started paying attention. Delighted at how much he has improved in constructing the jigsaw; disappointed that so much data-that-could-have-been-posted was not even ‘seen’ because S.E. hadn’t learned to look. Che sera.
So . . .
the roost was found yesterday when S.E. walked to the corridor, looking for birds. It’s about sixty yards – straight line – from the back of the fig. It is – tee hee – absolutely fig-green in colour.
So, you are me – well, you are us -- learning what we can to post for BYC friends. What are you thinking? What do you see?
‘Kay – we see three things: one is three poohs in a strangely neat little line; two is the imprint of two emu hocks, the third is a disturbance in front of that.
Hmmm . . . no feathers to be find – but the ‘front’ spot is still undoubtedly where a bird’s chest rested through the night.
Can we identify the bird?
Well, it took a while – but look at S.E.’s hand, look at the size of the overall roost, at the size of the blessings:
it’s Alpha Chick, guys. Got to be.
Okay . . . any other data? The blessing is fresh: it’s last night’s or, at most, the night before.
Well, the location is a data – right behind the fig tree.
And the contents of the blessing: 100% pure pureed fig. Not a single distinguishable other seed in it – including ‘farmhouse wheat,’ which we looked for. Now, on a couple of recent days, Wily Alpha has managed perhaps a half a teacup of Felicity’s wheat, left lying around. (He’ll come closer to the house than Audacious and E.F. generally would – that’s a datum.) But on most days, he has been ‘wild,’ and lived on figs.
So, the all-fig-ness of the blessings says it’s gotta be Audacious, E.F., or Alpha. Just got to be. No wild bird has had that many figs. (And – had you already guessed? – no wild bird could roost that close without causing a major ruckus. No way.)
Next, S.E. has pondered how the birds manage to deposit blessings at night without getting it all over their beautiful toosh feathers. Immelman says they stand up. Okay, we’ll buy that.
So, check the distance between the hock marks and the blessings. Surely only a small bird – a chick – could deposit blessings that close, and not get them on his toosh. Two of the blessings are the perfect little cones that they were at the moment of production. Toosh feathers have not rested upon them. This suggests more distance between Place of Blessing-Production and where those blessings came to lie. In an adult bird, at that distance, the blessings would be smack under the toosh.
Then, S.E. started looking around – bingo!! Two aisles away, at exactly the same distance down the aisle (from the track that the aisles run off), we found another roost! Almost identical -- ‘short wheel-base’ -- but just a little bit older.
So, on two nights, almost certainly successive nights, a small bird that had been living almost exclusively on figs retreated sixty yards from its pasture, and plonked itself down to rest. Such a datum could be partially checked, or added to, by observing the tree at first and last light. At dawn, you’d see a small, fig-gobblin’ morsel of dromaius appear from ‘down the back’ – north. Then that same dusk, you’d see the same morsel slip off north again.
Last note: recall that last spring we went to the back of Oudman's at dawn. That was when we were just learning about roosts -- seems a long time ago, doesn't it!! On that morning, for the first time, S.E. said, 'Yonder should be roosts.' And we found roosts.
And that's because we had figured out that wild emus generally roost close by the last pasture that they grazed on that day.
S.E
We are down to ‘two days’ – whatever that means; but the Project is almost finished – a year of data of the best quality I could manage.
Here is a last little Serious Bit:
how much can we deduce from observation – and I include even a single pet bird at your home?
S.E. has been delighted and disappointed by how much more he began to learn as he really started paying attention. Delighted at how much he has improved in constructing the jigsaw; disappointed that so much data-that-could-have-been-posted was not even ‘seen’ because S.E. hadn’t learned to look. Che sera.
So . . .
the roost was found yesterday when S.E. walked to the corridor, looking for birds. It’s about sixty yards – straight line – from the back of the fig. It is – tee hee – absolutely fig-green in colour.
So, you are me – well, you are us -- learning what we can to post for BYC friends. What are you thinking? What do you see?
‘Kay – we see three things: one is three poohs in a strangely neat little line; two is the imprint of two emu hocks, the third is a disturbance in front of that.
Hmmm . . . no feathers to be find – but the ‘front’ spot is still undoubtedly where a bird’s chest rested through the night.
Can we identify the bird?
Well, it took a while – but look at S.E.’s hand, look at the size of the overall roost, at the size of the blessings:
it’s Alpha Chick, guys. Got to be.
Okay . . . any other data? The blessing is fresh: it’s last night’s or, at most, the night before.
Well, the location is a data – right behind the fig tree.
And the contents of the blessing: 100% pure pureed fig. Not a single distinguishable other seed in it – including ‘farmhouse wheat,’ which we looked for. Now, on a couple of recent days, Wily Alpha has managed perhaps a half a teacup of Felicity’s wheat, left lying around. (He’ll come closer to the house than Audacious and E.F. generally would – that’s a datum.) But on most days, he has been ‘wild,’ and lived on figs.
So, the all-fig-ness of the blessings says it’s gotta be Audacious, E.F., or Alpha. Just got to be. No wild bird has had that many figs. (And – had you already guessed? – no wild bird could roost that close without causing a major ruckus. No way.)
Next, S.E. has pondered how the birds manage to deposit blessings at night without getting it all over their beautiful toosh feathers. Immelman says they stand up. Okay, we’ll buy that.
So, check the distance between the hock marks and the blessings. Surely only a small bird – a chick – could deposit blessings that close, and not get them on his toosh. Two of the blessings are the perfect little cones that they were at the moment of production. Toosh feathers have not rested upon them. This suggests more distance between Place of Blessing-Production and where those blessings came to lie. In an adult bird, at that distance, the blessings would be smack under the toosh.
Then, S.E. started looking around – bingo!! Two aisles away, at exactly the same distance down the aisle (from the track that the aisles run off), we found another roost! Almost identical -- ‘short wheel-base’ -- but just a little bit older.
So, on two nights, almost certainly successive nights, a small bird that had been living almost exclusively on figs retreated sixty yards from its pasture, and plonked itself down to rest. Such a datum could be partially checked, or added to, by observing the tree at first and last light. At dawn, you’d see a small, fig-gobblin’ morsel of dromaius appear from ‘down the back’ – north. Then that same dusk, you’d see the same morsel slip off north again.
Last note: recall that last spring we went to the back of Oudman's at dawn. That was when we were just learning about roosts -- seems a long time ago, doesn't it!! On that morning, for the first time, S.E. said, 'Yonder should be roosts.' And we found roosts.
And that's because we had figured out that wild emus generally roost close by the last pasture that they grazed on that day.
S.E
