Wild Emus at The Lilly Pilly Tree

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https://imgur.com/VNz5GTZ

Waterproof feather pyjamas

 

[AntiqueB]

Just sitting there, in a puddle, in the rain. It must be nice!!

I wouldn't mind feather pajamas in winter, but summer'd be hard.

 

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'summer'd be hard.'

When it gets to about 90 (old scale), they start panting, and sometimes hold their little wings out to their sides.

There's no doubt that the heat knocks them around.

 

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At dusk, Limpy Chick and Offsider and Undersized Emu were having their peck of wheat when we heard a female call right on the edge of the clearing.



Some minutes later – deep deep dusk (and cold) at this point – a wild emu, surely her, walked past me about 20 feet away. The three home-team birds seemed entirely uninterested in tackling her. They just sorta stared off into space like they’d farted in church.



So, three females present overnight; but I didn’t hear much vocalizing.



This morning, at (cold) first light, a pair, certainly including the one from last night, was grazing in the house-clearing with the home team.

 

[AntiqueB]

Do we know how much territory a male needs to hatch a clutch? Could two pairs raise chicks around the house clearing?

 

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'Do we know how much territory a male needs to hatch a clutch? Could two pairs raise chicks around the house clearing?'

The closest we've come, Antique, to knowing this is when we made the 'female emu territory map' years ago. We did that when -- to our utter astonishment -- we figured out that when Felicity and Greedy did their morning vocalisations, emus at a distance were replying!

 

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We got four females 'mapped,' and a wild guess at the distance between them would be around a half a mile -- female 'booms' carry over long distances.

We also know that females think that one house-clearing is not much territory. Greedy and Felicity did reach a detente in the year that she and Noddy Big Ears mated; but heck, they -- Greedy and Felicity -- were at it hammer and tongs for weeks and weeks on end.

And think back to how often we've noted the insane amounts of energy that wild emus expend harassing one another. So our guess would be that a breeding-pair would like the house-clearing to themselves.

SE

PS Don't forget that the pair doesn't raise the clutch. Dad does. That is, two males might incubate in the same area; but the literatue says the female departs just about when the incubation begins; and then, after the hatch, Dad hits the trail with his chicks.

 

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Undersized Emu is Empress of All She Surveys . . . at least when the breeding-pair isn’t around. Oddly, Offsider doesn’t (often) vocalise at night. U.E. does – we can pick her calls by now.



Here is U.E., who is interacting with some unseen and unheard emus to the east – but there’s definitely something going on:

https://imgur.com/DvyFaG6

And here she, moments later, getting’ all territorial. Wonderfully, the tiny microphone in my device picked up some of her ‘foomphs’:

https://imgur.com/O2Ud94w

 

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This is from two days ago, when the interloper pair just invited themselves in:

https://imgur.com/oDDNKvf

And finally: Antique asked a great question about how much space a breeding-pair would like to breed in.



Well, the more you think about this ‘equation,’ the more complex it gets. I said, ‘A breeding-pair won’t tolerate anyone else on their turf.’ But here, two days later, we have a photo of two breeding-pairs together.



The ‘equation’ whereby emus (usually the females) exercise power against one another is wonderfully complex. Reactions range from immediate and unrelenting attacks on other emus, to the sorts of capitulations you see here. Space is an element of that equation: Australia is big. If you can’t push that breeding-pair off their favoured patch of ground, move on and find another.



And there are behaviours like those of Undersized Emu, who is Queen of all she surveys, if she can get away with it. She is somehow operating ‘between’ everything else that’s going on.



But we may say that a pair seeking to secure a chosen turf as a site for breeding will be pretty intolerant of interlopers. Exactly how large might such a turf be? Good question!



Supreme Emu