'If they become the "house yard" pair that will make finding out if UE has a recessive dilute gene (and is probably a distant relo of BB) easier when they have chicks.'
sigh It may not happen, Finchbreeder.
The form of the breeding is sorta 'fragmented.' They may become a pair here, but mate elsewhere. Then the male alone incubates. And the day the hatch is complete, he hits the road. (Limpy Chick has been the great exception.)
There is detail to add here -- and you are learning how 'Project Rothschildi' progresses on cobbled together direct and indirect observations -- but a house-yard pair doesn't raise its chicks in the house yard. We usually never see the chicks that hatch here.
Dad and his clutch hit the road the hour the last chick emerges -- the last 'fragment.'
SE
PS I have written this note many times before. sigh. All up -- we're somewhere around 6,500 days of observations -- many many emus have been observed. Dozens and dozens have spent time in the house-clearing. Fewer were actually members of Eric's family. But only two are certainly identifiable if they turned up this minute: Felicity and Toosh Toosh.
'Ephemeral' is the right term here.