supreme emu

[yinepu]

Supreme Emu got summer rain, still got Net. So, one draft, just for fun: Report: last year we analysed the pastures of this 1200 acres: it's about emus-per-square-mile. But that's not how it works. Here's how it works: water comes first. Then pasture. The north east corner of this block -- about 300 acres -- is starvation scrub with an uncroassable fence to the north. There is water, but wild emus don't frequent it both because it's starvation scrub and because there's no logic in crossing the area. A couple of hours' rain lays the dust, and S.E.'s eyes are okay for a dusk walk to the corridor and the dam just north of it. This morning it was still raining, so S.E. puddled across (in anti-burr gum boots) to a dam about four hundred yards from the house. (Guys, I ferried in a bucket a few crawdads. I want to see if crawdads will grow in this particular dam.) So, four dams checked in a day. There is an hiatus here in the house-clearing. Felicity remains away -- but this year we are knowledgeable enough to be pleased about that: she's seeking a consort to bring back. Sassybird commanded until a few days ago. She got the last of the grapes on the feral grape vine, and pretty much the last of the unripe figs. There's been a breeding-pair here three days in a row. We are fairly sure it's the same pair. It's unlikely that it's three different pairs coming and going several times a day for several days. That's what checking the dams for tracks is about, readers. Sightings is data. Audits is data. Tracks are data. Blessings are data. There's a fresh track at the dam on the east of the house. I bet it's the pair we saw yesterday. There were no tracks visible on the dam near the starvation scrub, and no blessings evident on the Corridor itself. (There are roos by the dozen. There teeth make the pasture viable. At dusk, you see whole rows of low brown humps scattered across the pasture.) There are no tracks visible on the two dams to the west. So, tracks at just one dam. We are presently coming into the critical part of what we call 'The Big Jump.' This is a good season -- it's raining, and there'll be fresh pick in two days. But in a bad year, wild emus would be beginning to die of starvation this month. I suppose that it's just about now that these 'migrations' that we read about would begin. What else? We are part of a formal Australian environmental study, BYC folk -- and I mean we: I wouldn't be doing this stuff without you. Do you remember the 'coastal emus' that I posted about ages ago? Did you check the picture of the yellow-headed emu? Well, in search of details about high up into the snow country the emus live, I contacted Dr. Greg Clancy of the Clarence River district. (two hundred miles north of Sydney). The taxonomic system is profoundly changing, and in the interests of protecting a known group of the emus, the local conservationists are having DNA studies done of feathers from these endangered birds. In our conversation, Dr. Clancy asked me if I could supply some emu feathers from the 'rothschildi' district. Wheee! Okay. There's a dead emu on a fenceline at Oudman's. I saw it the last time we had rain, when I walked the half mile there and back. So, I returned to the poor critter's body, and got some feathers to mail to Dr. Clancy. Does anyone know if you can mail a feather internationally? Is it a breach of quarantine law? It would be worthwhile to provide these guys with a feather from the U.S. population of emus. The corridor smells of mint and cool eucalyptus oil. There's a tiny pasture, on which I've seen wild birds, that even now, in the middle of summer, has tiny flowers. It's a brown colour almost purple, and it's a joy for an old man (hat, dark glasses, walking stick, gumboots) to cross it in dusk rain. Once the corridor was a mere step down the back. Now I get there only once a month or so. It's quiet as a cathederal except for bird calls. S.E.

Mark, I'm not sure if you can send feathers internationally or not.. I know for pelts, skulls and so on they use CITES as a guideline and some things are strictly forbidden.. but I'll check into it on the taxidermy forum I frequent and see is anyone can give me any more info

 

[yinepu]

Quote:
Just checked.. can't send any "animal products" to Australia due to biosecurity..

 

[briefvisit]

Brief, Yinepu.

Ya, thought so.

Spot and Spottina:

early-morning-while-raining observations:

the two birds that I have glimpsed here on at least ten occasions are ALMOST certainly the same two birds, certainly a breeding-pair.

There seems to be a patch of white on the left side of one bird. So, Spot and Spottina.

No other birds seen for about a week.

S.E.

 

[yinepu]

Mark.. when does the breeding season tend to end there at your place?

 

[briefvisit]

Morning, Yinepu!
Well, breeding-season is winter -- June, July, August. We have one observation of a mating, from memory, late late autumn; and we have a report of small -- 'late' -- chicks sighted mid-spring in a wet 'micro-climate' area on my friends' property at Lake Muir.
If you check 'Mating-Season in Australia' and 'Planet Rothschildi,' you'll be able to find the pages with dates on matings and a hatch in 2012 (that's Greedy's consort Boy Emu) and the same in 2013 (that's Felicity's consort Noddy).
Beautiful morning here. Kangaroos are so hungry they've started on the chives in the garden.


Lots of work to be done on this, guys. I think there are the 'first mating' the pairs established BY winter. Then I think there are 'second matings' between 'secondary' males with females that have already laid/are laying for First Males. Then I suspect that some 'third matings' happen at the tail end ot it all. I have lain awake in the predawn, listening to various males 'talking' to the resident female here.

se

 

[briefvisit]

An emu-lover has funded my Net, though I won't post much.

Had visitors yesterday, sent by a local, fascinated by the notion of ornithological observation.

They missed out on seeing Sassybird 'cause they drove up to the house; but I took Marilyn down to the dam -- cool afternoon -- and showed her a fresh emu foot-print, and showed her some blessings that were identifiable: peach and apricot stones: Felicity last spring.

se

 

[yinepu]

Morning, Yinepu!
Well, breeding-season is winter -- June, July, August. We have one observation of a mating, from memory, late late autumn; and we have a report of small -- 'late' -- chicks sighted mid-spring in a wet 'micro-climate' area on my friends' property at Lake Muir.
If you check 'Mating-Season in Australia' and 'Planet Rothschildi,' you'll be able to find the pages with dates on matings and a hatch in 2012 (that's Greedy's consort Boy Emu) and the same in 2013 (that's Felicity's consort Noddy).
Beautiful morning here. Kangaroos are so hungry they've started on the chives in the garden.


Lots of work to be done on this, guys. I think there are the 'first mating' the pairs established BY winter. Then I think there are 'second matings' between 'secondary' males with females that have already laid/are laying for First Males. Then I suspect that some 'third matings' happen at the tail end ot it all. I have lain awake in the predawn, listening to various males 'talking' to the resident female here.

se

I have to admit.. I'm a bit jealous that you get to have the company of your wild family...

 

[briefvisit]

Guys, some advice please:

Sassybird does constantly something I have never seen -- but you guys have so much more knowledge of birds at close range.
Well, she's aggressive: circles me; makes little rushes when my back is turned. She'll do it for ten minutes at a time. Comes really close. Leans right in on me.

Now, when Greedy and Felicity did this, they would 'beak' me. A gentle 'feely' peck. Never scared me at all.

This afternoon, as an experiment, I sat [dusk] on a stool in the open, so Sassybird could move freely about me. I had to steel my nerves when she moved behind me. If I turn and meet her eye, she backs off. But if I expose my back while facing the other way . . . I really thought she was gonna 'step on my tail' the way that wild birds do to each other.

Finally: I remain mightily puzzled about whether she is Number One or not. The fact that she 'knows' the coffee can. That she comes into the back yard. This morning she ate from my hand (and sat closer while doing it than Felicity or Greedy would). No tame-wild bird has ever done that.

Please offer me your thoughts.

S.E

 

[briefvisit]

Youtube baby ostrich dance party -- ostriches spazzydance also!

se

 

[briefvisit]

Dear dear long-timers,

I found a half-ripe fig yesterday, and shimmering-black-winged crows are arcing about from gums to fig and back: Winter Number Seven.

Here is an quote from 'Notes from the Homeland,' June, 2010:

'Last week, I crawled on my belly the length of a fallen gum to view some emus that I saw before they saw me --none too usual. A male and eight chicks were grazing in the open, and I watched them for several minutes.'

I have started calling 'Sassybird' 'Number One' -- I'm sure enough now: this bird is the chick that grew up here with Felicity and Greedy. So, she now gets a full-ration. Her birthright. Her hatchright.

VERY quiet here lately. Number One commands. Felicity will turn up soon. Few few other birds. Roos are hungry.
se