Wild Emus at The Lilly Pilly Tree

[briefvisit]

The fig trees do not produce as they used to -- long story. But a lot of emus know about them. And they approach them from the north, the 'bush side.'



So this sort of incursion -- the figs are unripe but the emus still scoff them down -- is typical. Anything from one to twenty emus will 'operate' against the home team from down behind the fig tree.

We have watched interactions like this with binoculars from the ridge cap of the house. It's an excellent way of getting a sense of the size of emu world. Sometimes eight or ten emus will operate over three or four days, skirting the house-clearing from in the bush as the home team stands guard ‘opposite’ them on the edge of the clearing.

 

[briefvisit]

https://imgur.com/S6eF4kG

 

[briefvisit]

Goodness, this clip is maybe thirteen years old. It shows Felicity Emu ‘escorting’ a number of interlopers away. The point is that she is fully two hundred yards from the house-clearing at this point. That is, for some reason, she saw fit to drive these five or six wild emus right off her turf.



[And although it’s a mundane-looking clip, it is rare.]

 

[briefvisit]

https://imgur.com/ybt2J9N

 

[AntiqueB]

That's a brumbie with a lot of nerve!

 

[briefvisit]

I've never been nearly so close to them.

 

[briefvisit]

Dad and The Cheeky Chicks cruised through this morning. Limpy Chick and Offsider paid them little attention.

SE

 

[AntiqueB]

The Cheeky Chicks! Great name!

 

[briefvisit]

https://imgur.com/KbfZWa2

It's time to get some of the old photos posted here before I get any older. Listen carefully at about 05:00, and you can hear a second female vocalise just once.

So it's a home-team breeding-pair, with the male paying no attention; the female challenging an intruder, and the intrudger challenging the home-team female.

 

[briefvisit]

This is just random. It's a wedge-tailed eagle -- a predator of chicks -- drifting over my backyard.

https://imgur.com/ttC6Asn