Wild Emus at The Lilly Pilly Tree

[briefvisit]

https://imgur.com/xoFPK6s

It is at about this age, campers, that you see that they really are dinosaurs. They have no teeth. They are 99% herbivorous. They aren't dangerous.

But there's an intent in the way they move as a group, and 'operate' against interlopers, that shows that once upon a time, they were dangerous.



SE

 

[briefvisit]

https://imgur.com/a/iG3U6YT

Can you guess?

 

[briefvisit]

What you see are the stones that an emu has ingested to help its digestion. The poop is perhaps from last spring. Rain has dissolved the poop, but left the stones.

I put the stick there as a pointer. At the end of the stick, you can see a scrap of dried emu poop. Such a scrap is preserved because it has a tiny chunk of undigested grass in it.

They're small stones. I would have thought one of the chicks, but ??

 

[briefvisit]

Sometimes you will see a Dad lead his chicks from a feed of wheat to a bare spot nearby, where they all happily sit down and peck the ground. It took me some time to figure out that they were actually ingesting stones.

 

[briefvisit]

https://imgur.com/oAw1EwN

Here is the identification problem: my eyes are bad. Their heads are just never still.

All six look like this. But we'll wait. One or two may become recognisable.

 

[briefvisit]

Random:

https://imgur.com/SKiF5Rk