Wild Emus at The Lilly Pilly Tree

[AntiqueB]

My experience with house pet birds like parakeets and canaries is that some will sometimes start tweeting or singing at night, starting and ending abruptly. In warmer weather, birds will sing at intervals all night some nights. Maybe they are sleeptalking?

Full moons can sometimes be very bright. Or maybe she suffers from insomnia!

 

[briefvisit]

Good data, Antique. This discussion has been going on a long time.

 

[briefvisit]

Looking to Mid-Winter Day

The male of a breeding-pair – as we understand the process from observations here – will not turn up for brekkie on mid-winter day because he will be sitting quietly on big green eggs.



Today we are ten weeks short of mid-winter day, and we may begin looking at our resident breeding-pair as not just ‘a breeding-pair,’ but in respect of whether they’ll breed here.



Everything else is valuable data: Dads with chicks, the Cheeky Chicks finding their way in the world, various ‘travellers’ making forays onto the pasture here, making forays for lilly pillies.



But an actual incubation here would be only the third in eighteen years. And the second one we got very very little data on because Supreme Emu was a most unwell emu, and managed very few observations.



Supreme Emu

 

[AntiqueB]

Hopefully there will be an incubation there this year, and great data from a healthy Supreme Emu!

 

[briefvisit]

In coming weeks, Antique, we'll be looking for the behaviours that we saw in Greedy the Emu and Boy Emu long ago. I'll describe these, as we go, if they happen; but there is a set of these.

 

[briefvisit]

Good audit

We were in the house-clearing, with coffee and a warm cushion, from 5:08 to 6:20.

Both the breeding-pair and Undersized Emu were here last night. So why didn’t Offsider vocalise, as she is the dominant player? We don’t know!



But our audit gave us good data. U.E., who still hadn’t gone to roost at last last light yesterday evening, was vocalizing from her roost about 60 yards due south of the house. We were able to hear her through the night; but without a fix on her location because under the blankets in bed, us!



At 5:08, we could easily place her to within about a hundred feet: fabulously still air. (With several night birds, including a boo-book owl)



And she was out in the house-clearing at first kookaburra call – really really early.



Limpy Chick and Offsider turned up from the other direction ten or fifteen minutes afterwards. And they go to bed earlier.



So, readers, this is a start to the sort of observing/auditing that we’ll need to do if breeding seems likely. The house-clearing is . . . five acres? But Limpy Chick would be sitting about ten metres into the gums, and five acres plus a strip ten metres wide all the way around the house-clearing is quite an area. In mid-winter. In pouring rain and howling wind.



SE

 

[AntiqueB]

Sounds lovely!

Aren't you glad you're not an emu?

 

[briefvisit]

Uploads being difficult right now, but:



Between about two a.m. and four a.m., Undersized Emu vocalized – a wild guess as I drifted in and out of sleep – 30-40 times.

At 2:20 a.m., I got dressed; made coffee; and spent fifteen minutes auditing: magnificent calm clear night.

U.E. called a half a dozen times as I sat listening. No other emu calls were audible. (And we are now quite familiar with U.E.’s ‘jumbled’ calls. It’s definitely her that we’re listening to.)

 

[briefvisit]

So, who is she calling to? Offsider is nearby. Or other emus at a distance?



Next, Offsider and Limpy Chick mated right outside the window of ‘the retreat room’ in the house. I have a photo.



Again we don’t understand: egg-laying can’t/won’t happen now, so why ‘practice’ matings?



And a wild conjecture: what if L.C. and Offsider leave early and arrive late to the house-clearing because they’re roosting some distance away?



Maybe just 200 yards? We need to extensively (sigh) observe them each dusk. Let’s start with the north-west corner of the house-clearing.

 

[briefvisit]

Technical glitch on-going. Can’t post videos.



Brief:

Here is Limpy Chick and Offsider mating yesterday morning right outside my window. (The ‘warm retreat room’):

https://imgur.com/d4S5tOn