Tooshtoosh Has Brought His Chicks

[briefvisit]

Tooshtoosh Emu has left the building.

The chicks were here on their own. Quite composed. No cheeping or running about.

As predicted, LimpyChick bullied them, but half-heartedly.

What Do We Understand?
Not enough. Tooshtoosh is now a free agent. But the business of forming a breeding-pair; and securing territory, and making a nest -- that stuff normally takes months; but Tooshtoosh theoretically has only days.

SE

 

[Ursuline Chick]

Tooshtoosh Emu has left the building.

The chicks were here on their own. Quite composed. No cheeping or running about.

As predicted, LimpyChick bullied them, but half-heartedly.

What Do We Understand?
Not enough. Tooshtoosh is now a free agent. But the business of forming a breeding-pair; and securing territory, and making a nest -- that stuff normally takes months; but Tooshtoosh theoretically has only days.

SE

This is going to be exciting!
I wonder if Tooshtoosh has a lady in mind already, will he have to fight for her, or is she hiding in the wings, waiting for him.
Does he have a nest area, like could he keep the one he was using with the last chicks?
This feels like a cross between a soap opera and film noir.
Please keep telling us what is going on with Tooshtoosh, I am sure I am not the only one interested in Tooshtoosh's love life.

 

[briefvisit]

‘I wonder if Tooshtoosh has a lady in mind already’

Other way around. The emu species is gyno-centric – the women (largely) rule the roost. And yes, Ursuline, she’ll battle mightily with other females in order to gain command of a territory. Hilariously, the males often stand around like potted palms. But if she calls on him – it’s awesome to watch – he’ll snap into action, and the pair of them will undertake a synchronized assault on interlopers.

And although we understand this Standard Procedure of forming breeding-pairs – through autumn into winter – there is a great hole in our knowledge about the situation of a male emu like Tooshtoosh.



‘Please keep telling us what is going on with Tooshtoosh,’

We won’t know. But here is some background:

Tooshtoosh is a special male because he is an orphan, which has made him a homebody -- and his sister LimpyChick also.

After Tooshtoosh’s dad was killed, we didn’t know for two years if the observation project here was over: the observations had for a decade centred on the fact that Eric the Emu would bring his clutches of chicks to the house-clearing.



So this is the present situation: The Project lives. We have a known male who may bring his clutches here for spring plums if nothing else. That male has stayed ‘in orbit’ here for longer than Eric ever did.



But Tooshtoosh at this second? Late in the middle month of winter? Unless he ‘passes through’ in the next couple of days, my bet is that we won’t see him until he turns up here again with a clutch, in a year or two.



‘Does he have a nest area’

No. The breeding-pair build it together – it’s just a scratch on the ground, hardly a nest by normal bird standards. They do that together after they have gained ‘command’ of their territory.

And observations of nest-building must be extremely rare. In thirteen years, I’ve only clearly seen it once, and sort of figured it out on a couple of other occasions. (We have had two incubations here in the actual house-clearing: Boy Emu in 2013, and Noddy Big Ears Emu a year later.)

 

[briefvisit]

This photo has a sort of sentimental value for me. It's the last photo of the clutch that Tooshtoosh grew up in. After Eric's death, the eight remaining chicks 'based themselves' at the house-clearing while Tooshtoosh and LimpyChick recovered from their injuries. Then they started drifting away. Late in autumn -- these chicks are about 18 months old -- two came back one afternoon. They had nice wheat together. And then sat down together.
Now, the house-clearing is as big as a Walmart car park; but you see that the chicks sit in a cosy clump.

 

[Ursuline Chick]

2 years, wow that's a long time.
So you have been watching this extended family for about 13 years. This is really a long term project. Will you be writing a book about the Emu family adventures? Or is this a study, so that we will have a better understanding of Emu culture (as they have done with primates)?

 

[briefvisit]

Well . . . it just so happened that when I moved into this old farmhouse, I was studying the biological underpinnings of human sexuality (in relation to classical left political theory).

(This is technical -- but it is the answer to your question.)

So, in hoomernz, the difficulty is figuring out what is 'nature' and what is 'culture.' But obviously there is much much less 'cultural transmission' in non-human species. And yes, the project has real similarities (although much much less low key . . . ) with the primatological studies. The observation area was at one point about ten miles wide and three deep.

Meanwhile, over the first few days, I realised that it was the same emu cruising around the house-clearing (autumn: figs). I tamed the three chicks he brought later that year, but it was eight years before that crafty old dinosaur ate from my hand.

Overall, Ursuline, it seemed helpful to do a scholarly job of the observations. And this summer it'll be five thousand days. And we -- and I mean 'we' because lots of folks on this site have been involved over the years -- have unearthed a lot of data.

You know you read that female emus just leave after they lay? Well, when (the legendary) 'Greedy Emu' mated with Boy Emu in 2013, she stayed until the hatch, and over the four days of the hatch, she stayed in almost constant attendance, sitting about twenty metres away while her first-ever chicks hatched.

se

 

[briefvisit]

Five chicks and LimpyChick here yesterday. All happy.

 

[briefvisit]

Well, it looks as though this phase is coming to an end: this afternoon, only three of Tooshtoosh's chicks cruised through. So, at eleven-and-a-half months, we are observing a clutch of five/three recently 'divested' by their Dad -- who may or may not be sitting on new eggs -- and which stayed together briefly, but now seems to be breaking up.
SE

 

[Ursuline Chick]

Well, it looks as though this phase is coming to an end: this afternoon, only three of Tooshtoosh's chicks cruised through. So, at eleven-and-a-half months, we are observing a clutch of five/three recently 'divested' by their Dad -- who may or may not be sitting on new eggs -- and which stayed together briefly, but now seems to be breaking up.
SE

It seems, like many of us this year, Tooshtoosh's chicks are "grown up" and ready to go out on their own. I wish them a happy Emu life.
So if Tooshtoosh is sitting on a new clutch of eggs, how long will it take them to hatch? And then will they stay with him for about a year as these did? How long is he off the nest each day? And will the current chicks all go on their way? What happens if one of the current chicks decides they want to stay with Dad?
Sorry I have so many questions and have become invested in Tooshtoosh and his family. I will ask a few each time you post, if you don't mind. So I don't highjack the thread with my silly questions. Thanks and please keep posting about Tooshtoosh and his family's lives.

 

[briefvisit]

Good morning, Ursuline. Firstly, an overview:

you will begin to enjoy and appreciate this Project as you come to terms with how little we know. There's an astonishing lack of data on this species, and our little project shines small lights into a lot of darkness.

'Tooshtoosh's chicks are "grown up" ' -- well done to put inverted commas around 'grown up.' Even until about 20 months, you can still see vestiges of their juvenile plumage. And socially? I have this theory that emus aren't competent to mate until their third year.

'a new clutch of eggs' -- seven-and-a-half weeks

'And then will they stay with him for about a year as these did?' -- this is one of those dark areas! We have some data -- good data -- to the effect that sometimes Dads stay with chicks into a second year.

But take the Darwinian perspective: every time a Dad goes into a second year of parenting, is he drastically reducing the number of offspring he parents in a life time? It seems so. So??