Wild Emus at The Lilly Pilly Tree

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https://imgur.com/q485Esr

Grey Currawongs

 

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https://imgur.com/k3QtISp

This is a wonderful clip, readers. To get this close to wild chicks -- 98% wild chicks, not tame-wild chicks -- is a first for us.

SE

 

[AntiqueB]

That's a great video. The one on the end is so graceful when he/she jogs away. Were they eating wheat?

 

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Apart from a couple of random bags of lentils and the like, the Planet Rothschildi project has been fuelled by 'seconds' wheat. It's cheap, and comes in 20 kg. bags.

 

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Today?

Dad and The Cheeky Chicks frequent the house-clearing. We'll continue observing.

 

[AntiqueB]

What do Limpy Chick and Offsider think about Dad and the Cheeky Chicks visiting so often?

 

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'What do Limpy Chick and Offsider think about Dad and the Cheeky Chicks visiting so often?'

Imagine, Antique, that you are sitting on a comfy cloud a mile above the house-clearing. Below you, you can see miles and miles of land, some farms with the fences down, some National Park.



And on that territory are various ‘formations’ of wild emus: breeding pairs, Dads with clutches, etc.



None of these are moving randomly. They are ‘working’ a circuit of permanent water and pastures.



We roughly understand, for example, that the home-team emus here might cover four or five miles in a day, from water to pasture to pasture to water, and then roost wherever they are when the sun goes down.



So the answer to your question is: they all come and go, not randomly, but ‘within their orbit.’ And they bump into other. And there are or are not conflicts of varying intensities.



Of note, though, is that when a breeding-pair ‘commands’ some bit of turf – as Limpy Chick and Offsider Emu do here at present – they will attempt to drive off interlopers.



And Dad and The Cheeky Chicks are such interlopers, but LC and Offsider don’t put a lot of effort into them. It’s like trying to catch a cloud in a butterfuly net. Offsider, for example, will chase the chicks to the edge of the clearing, but they’ll begin edging back in a matter of fifteen or twenty seconds.

 

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About a decade ago, we had a bumper fig crop. Every wild emu within miles knows about the fig tree. And they came in droves.



Now, if you are sitting on the ridge cap of the house, and you have a pair of binoculars, you can see various open spots for some distance around the fig tree, which is itself on the edge of the house-clearing.



And on and off for some days, we sat up there, and watched the ballet of emu movement as various ‘formations’ – including groups of a dozen and more – vied in slow motion for access to those yummy yummy plums.



It was that same autumn that we counted 55 emus – many of them chicks – coming through the house-clearing in a single afternoon. Where they’d come from and where they were going, we don’t know. But these are two insights into the question you’re asking about emu movements.



From the day they’re born to the day they die, wild emus roam their territories foraging and accessing water and breeding, and they bump into other emus doing the same, and they interact in various ways when that happens.



SE

 

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Eduardo The Emu and His Chicks



I spoke to a farmer whose property is over near the Stirling Ranges. She says that several years ago, a male emu with a clutch turned up at her farmhouse, and the family observes them.

We have little detail – most of all, how does Eduardo get through the fences, as it is a working farm, so the fences are in good order?



Details to follow.

 

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https://imgur.com/Tyg6FCt

https://imgur.com/iNeQDaJ

Here are the chicks. Still cheeping.

One gets a good swipe from Offsider.



So, how much longer until Dad gives them the shove?