Wild Emus at The Lilly Pilly Tree

[briefvisit]

https://imgur.com/iSUidcQ

 

[briefvisit]

These chicks are in an enviable situation. They seem to be in fine condition. There are four of them together. They've had an extra year of experience with their Dad. It's an early autumn: already grass popping up everywhere.

So now they get some life experience. By next spring, they'll be beginning their third year, but we don't think they'll enter the mating market that year. Still too young. Perhaps their fourth year -- ??

 

[AntiqueB]

Emus seem to have a fairly high survival rate. How many actually make it to breeding age? Do most chicks survive? Is the emu population stable, or growing?

 

[briefvisit]

Lots of notes coming.

'Emus seem to have a fairly high survival rate. How many actually make it to breeding age? Do most chicks survive? Is the emu population stable, or growing?'

Emus are not classified as 'endangered' or anything like it. They're pretty resilient -- like sneaking on to blue-gum plantations to gobble up the fruit in my house-clearing.

 

[briefvisit]

'How many actually make it to breeding age? Do most chicks survive?'

Great question!!

For a change, this is a discussion we have a good deal of data on. The bad news, however, Antique, is that it's a big big question!

For example, do we factor in infertile eggs? I got to watch the look on Toy Boy Emu's face at the moment he decided to abandon the two dead eggs in his nest, and lead his hungry and thirsty clutch to water.

And: it's a pretty fair assumption that predation happens most in the first weeks after incubation. Even by the age of just four months, chicks are fast. But when they are tiny, they face a problem that I think non-wild-emu owners forget: litter. The bush is full of fallen branches and sticks and piles of leaves. And if you are literally eight inches tall, those are hard to navigate, which makes you highly vulnerable.

But the problem for us is that there has always been a gap between the hatching of the clutch, and the arrival of the clutch here. So, in a way, the 'clutch' that Dads bring here is a 'second-phase clutch,' perhaps a month or three old. So we have no data on predation in that most vulnerable period.

 

[briefvisit]

Clutch sizes range in size from one to ten. Planet Rothschildi has seen the loss of several chicks under immediate observation.

To keep the ball rolling, I make the wild uncertain visceral fuzzy guess of a touch over half.

Which immediately makes no sense because we know emus may have a full decade of parenting. So with even five chicks per clutch on average, breeding-pairs are leaving a dozen or more progeny.

Perhaps the best way ahead here is to divide the question into sub-questions.

SE

 

[briefvisit]

Lots going on here. I'll write notes in coming days.

For instance, there was (almost certainly) a third female here yesterday. We heard it just beyond the house-clearing while The Cheeky Chicks were here.

And last night, we are p r e t t y sure we heard three females.

And the extra-wheat-because-under-observation status of The Chicks has been revoked. They are here now, but Limpy Chick is the only home-team emu here, so only she and her consort get wheat. But U.E. and the chicks still scavenge just a little.

 

[briefvisit]

Just in case you missed this edit:

"But the problem for us is that there has always been a gap between the hatching of the clutch, and the arrival of the clutch here. So, in a way, the 'clutch' that Dads bring here is a 'second-phase clutch,' perhaps a month or three old. So we have no data on predation in that most vulnerable period."

 

[briefvisit]

https://imgur.com/la04EcG

This is this morning. Just for fun: do you think you can figure out who is whom?

 

[briefvisit]

Limpy Chick and Offsider left Undersized Emu to mind the house-clearing. There’s a wild breeding-pair here – and what’s the bet that the female is the female we heard yesterday morning while watching the Cheeky Chicks, and the third female we heard last night.



I’ll get a photo of the interlopers up later.



This is all typically autumn. Grass and water are suddenly plentiful – quite literally a matter of a week or ten days – and ‘emu schmoozing season’ is underway: emus are on the move.



And would anyone like to guess where the Dad of the Cheeky Chicks is? My guess is that he headed south/south-west, which takes him across blue-gum plantations with fresh grass and water, and over to the wild emus of the Lake Muir wetlands.

Here’s a map.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/L...try=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDQwNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw==

The house-clearing here is about where the ‘102’ icon to the right of Lake Muir is.