Planet Rothschildi

[Tame Emu Guy]

Tamarillo Tree 101​

How thoughtless that I have never introduced you to the tamarillo tree!!






If you sit under it, you face the fig tree, and are easily ‘embedded.’ Now, some ‘observation projects’ are serious – we traipse across the river, to freeze or get nibbled by flies (depending on the season). However, it is legitimate to sneak out under the tamarillo tree – especially in the mornings and evenings – and just sit and watch.






What you see is not nearly so bland as it may appear (and the grass and the clothesline and the fence are a positive not a negative aspect: ‘embedded’!!) There is a short track by the fig tree, and it leads to an island of scrub just behind the house-clearing. A track runs at ninety degrees to that short track. One end of it runs down to the two meadows, and the other end runs down to the corridor, which is – as the crow flies – only about three hundred yards away. This island of scrub has figured in the past: it is the ‘staging-ground’ from which really shy – wild – birds entice my birds off on adventures, so this is also a good place to listen to vocalisations.

So, the combination of tracks and nearby meadows – and the fact that the gums here on the north side are the ‘jumping off’ point for forays against the fig tree and into the house-clearing – means that any BYC visitor who sits for an hour under it, at least on autumn mornings, can be fairly certain of observing unalarmed wild birds at close range through the binoculars. Several tame birds will cross the fence at right, right in front of you, in order to tax the plums that fall under the tree.

While you are waiting – especially morning and evening – you’ll see myriads of wild birds at the bird bath: silvereyes, magpies, rosellas, ‘big silvereyes,’ new Holland honeyeaters, parrots, kookaburras, kurrawongs, splendid fairy wrens, robins, willy wagtails; sometimes in flocks of fifteen and twenty. (Rosella in the photo.) Swallows and hawks and wedgies and muirs corellas and black cockatoos and owls are all to be seen, at times, in flight overhead.

S.E.

 

[kbgh]

Cool pic of the sunrise.

Loved the pics of the emu's.

About the only 2 things I could identify in the pic of the "food" were the fig and the thistle. Fig looks like what we call a turkey fig and the thisle easy to spot. It this a thorny or soft thistle? I would think spiny or thorny thistle would be hard for the emu to eat, whereas soft thisle is more like our dandelions only a coarser leaf.

 

[kbgh]

Now we are really getting an idea of what the area looks like. I see what you mean by siting and hiding in plain sight.

Beautiful rosella.

Barb would go nuts with all the birds you listed.

Kerry

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Tee hee, K.B., we call it a 'scotch thistle.' It has a beautiful flute-shaped purple 'flower'; but eating it would be like eating a ball of steel wool with shards of glass glued on the outside. I was flabbergasted when I saw the birds tucking into it. It must not exactly slide over the tongue. Nevertheless, it's large and nutritious.

But we hate it. It's a weed, a 'declared species,' seven feet deep in the old sheep yards, and 'marching' across this uncared-for land.

Here's as close as we get to politics here at BYC: bad cess to the companies that 'monocultured' this land!! It's been a disaster, and we will have to answer to our children's children for the folly of it!!

S.E.

 

[kbgh]

Gotta be the same thisle or dam close cousin to it. Ours too gets 6-7 feet tall and has blue or purple flowers, and don't try to pull it bare-handed nor fall into a patch of it. Like tangling with a procupine.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Morning, all!

Beginning-of-Summer Report:​

S.E. hopes to maintain observations ‘til the beginning of mating-season 2013, which will provide readers a full year of observations. Ratty and parital in nature? Certainly -- but unprecedented.

Yesterday evening, I choofed down to the corridor. In winter, and well into spring, there are two pools by the track there, and they can be a marker for us:

They are. They’re dry.

[Though there is a splendid cool moist smell, mixed with the wild mint, coming from them.]

There is a pool of water about a half a mile into the National Park behind Oudman’s. There is still water in the swamp itself (though I wonder if the birds go in there – there’s a project: go check). There is water in the Frankland River. Beyond that, aficionados, there are only the dams – and that water is plentiful; but that’s not my point. My point is that:

The Big Jump has begun . . .

‘The Big Jump’ is what we’ll call the time until the winter rains brings plentiful fresh pick again.
This season will be a good one, so this year will be a good one. We had a wet spring. Feed is plentiful, but The Season of Little Yellow Flowers is well and truly over!


[Wait! Brief Interlude!!

I just went out to get a photo. I saw Alpha do a spontaneous spazzy-dance jump in the air, then Omega followed suit. Very cute. Then I walked over to the shearing-shed, and . . . check the photo carefully. Look just left of the shed:




It’s a deer! And it is a datum of sorts because it tells us a little about how critters navigate the mosaic of environments in this area. It must have come a good distance, probably from the National Park over near Lake Muir – ten miles or more -- where the country is more open, and wended its way through a number of fenced areas, to wind up grazing in my house-clearing. How interesting. ‘Kay, back to work.]

Observations have already became far far harder, both for me because of the heat and dust and flies, and because the dry leaves make it muchmuchmuch harder to get the drop on wild birds.

One response will be to use the 'Great Circle Route’: we will walk right to the far side of The 500, and 'come in the back’ on the track there. The track has no leaves on it, and actually allows us to move very quietly across a good-sized slice of territory. Otherwise, we’ll observe in the early mornings and on overcast days, and try to observe from tracks that allow us to move about quietly.


My post about inviting you all over as observers wasn’t entirely a joke. To gather quality data during a week in which there are days are over 110 degrees, you’d need nothing less than a team of serious, physically fit, well-briefed and well-equipped observers. It would be simply negligent of me to despatch an unprepared BYC comrade from a cool U.S. state on a ten-mile round trip to the N.P. behind Oudman’s on a day like that. You could end up face down in a paddock somewhere.


[And just for the record: don't think that the emus themselves don't suffer. I regularly see them in extremis on bad summer days, panting and staggering about from shade to shade in their little feather suits. We shall have a formal report on this later.]

Personally, I’m okay with the heat (in small doses); but I gotta ‘gear up’ to deal with the burrs. They drive me nuts – and did I mention the burrs? They drive me nuts!

Our two goals for this season are:

one: to continue trying to figure out what the wild birds eat (and where and when they drink), and
two: keep trying to identify ‘markers’ that outline the Big Picture of the birds’ daily and yearly movements.


Remember that we all went ‘Awww!’ over the photo of Felicity on her knees eating L.Y.F.’s behind the shearing-shed? Well, this is that spot this morning:





Supreme Emu

P.s.: don’t be fooled by the green around the tamarillo tree. That’s the garden and the septic and a bit of water sprayed about.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

The Management would like to apologise for this morning’s loss of control. We have no idea who posted the Silliness about Summer. It’s presently raining so hard here that we can hardly hear ourselves type . . .

Eric Plus eat their afternoon wheat. Felicity turns up, and is patted and fed; but she’s silly enough to vocalise, so Eric Plus eat her afternoon wheat, then the extra afternoon wheat that I gave them so Felicity would have time to eat her afternoon wheat. I leave extra afternoon wheat for Felicity at a little distance from the house, but Eric Plus eat that as well. Final Score: Eric Plus, four; Felicity, nil.

S.E.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Over an inch of rain. Go figure.

Adolescents and ‘runts’?? I’ve been waiting to write about this:

we know that there can be months of difference between the hatch-dates of ‘early’ and ‘late’ chicks. So, a year later (and suppose that one chick thrives and the other doesn’t), those two chicks will be appreciably different sizes. So, imagine that you are observing wild birds in the autumn of any year. You might think: ‘That bird is ten months old. Hatched last winter. That bird is a twenty-two months old. Hatched the winter before last.’ But it doesn’t seem to be the case. There’s too much ‘spread.’

There’s a bird standing cold and lonely in the gums about eighty yards from the keyboard. It is either a big one-and-a-half-year old or an adult runt. How can we tell? Answer: I don’t think we can (unless we launched a long and complex study with microchips etc. etc.)

Next: Speckles and Sarah:

so, the females of the species fight for access to males – but does that mean that the males are the submissive partners of the pairs? Perhaps readers can explain this. Does Eric, for instance, a double-alpha bird, stand quietly by while Mrs. Eric fights other females to gain his favours?

Any king knows that kingship doesn’t last. If Supreme Emu doesn’t go to the Big Pasture in The Sky for a few years yet, we may eventually see Eric overthrown (and we’ll discuss The Return of Greedy later); and it will be a bird like Speckles that does it. Let’s go over his resume:

he was selected by Greedy, a good sign; and would we guess from that that he is young? He certainly doesn’t look old.

[He got dumped by Greedy – ‘kay, we have no data on that.]

He found himself another consort, Sarah. She is a most handsome bird. We aren’t being silly soppy here, readers. We mean this stuff in a cold-blooded evolutionary way. They are a pair of big glossy healthy-looking emus. Fine contenders to pass on the eighty-million-year-old baton.

He brought her back to the house-clearing. Think about it, readers. It’s a pretty cheeky move!!
Speckles is definitely trying it on with Emperor Eric. He hasn’t stood his ground yet, but he comes right into the house-clearing.

Next: hmmm . . . there’s no doubt about it – I’ve observed it twice this morning – the chicks lead the attack!! Eric Plus drove off the runt I mentioned, with the chicks – both this time – a good twenty-five feet ahead of Eric. (Sounds like the old joke about dogs chasing cars – what would they do if they caught one?) A few minutes later, as Eric was ‘shunting’ Speckles out, the chicks were again leading the pack.

[This is crazy! It’s pouring rain and blowing hard. Eric Plus are sitting quietly (in their little feather suits) just by the house.]

S.E. going back to his roost.

 

[Calla]

How about 3" of rain overnight like we had last week.?? Hard 1st frost this morning and sunny now, love this and all water gone.
Microchip.....? good idea....yes ok when small chicks, but how can you read this when adults and maybe never been touched....?
Someone better invent different colours lol

Like my Pygmy Goats, not 2 alike even in 50+ Goats.

Calla










or Rheas and Llamas ?




Or Bantams ?

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

We would use some sort of GPS thing, I suppose. We’d have to plan . . .

Even a GPS hung on Felicity’s neck on a piece of ‘tissue rope’ that would last only hours or a day or two.
Think about it, guys: within a mile of walking from the clearing here, we don’t know if, say, Felicity has walked across through The 500 and gone to the Reserve on the far side. Does she go down and cross the fence into the Top Corner? And schmooze with those wild birds? Does she hang out in the actual scrub ‘way out’ on the northern part of the block? Where does she drink?

S.E