Meeting Absurd, The 6 foot flightless bird.
Meeting Absurd, The 6 foot flightless bird.
My grandfather had an ol saying regarding Emu's, Is there nothing so absurd as a 6 foot flightless bird. something I never really paid attention to nor forgot.
So it was 2006, I was working close to home and had to muster some sheep, I crested the top of a hill and paused while the mob gathered below, half hour job ahead i stopped for a cigarette and just let the sheep take their time. The old Honda Ag 250 was spluttering a bit and the chain was loose so I tucked my pants into my socks.
I looked down at the mob through the dust they had kicked up behind them, 600 head of sheep will do that in the desert.
In the distance ahead of the sheep I noticed a post, looked like a marker to me, farmers use them a lot to visually identify a place of importance in such featureless country.
However no sooner had I thought this and it stood up, The sheep scattered, left and right, and through the haze I made it out, an Emu.
It was then as I thought what the hell is this bird doing here out in the open plains that he chose his target, ME.
There I am on a rattly old bike with no gears and a loose chain and he is coming straight at me because this is all my fault, Now I don't expect most people to know but anyone who has ever listened to John williams knows that Kangaroos are quick but Ol man Emu, well let's just say he can run the pants of a kangaroo.
There is a song about that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqgENQLwT1I
So I turned quick smart, as the bike would allow and headed straight back for those hills, Up, on a bike with a centrivical clutch, I couldn't gear down I just had to hope I could make it to the rocky reef at the top and blaze through it on the one little pass i came through, while hoping that would either stop or at least slow him down.
So I flattened it, leaning forward over the bike to try and urge it on he kept gaining ground, I made it to the rocks and bang crashed my way through with no regard for the bike until it finally slipped the chain, then I jumped off it and dropped it to the right and ran careful to pick up a decent fist sized rock as I did and stopped behind a Bid rock, when I stopped to turn around he had stopped at the rock line a bit before the bike and was pacing back and forth. All puffed up strutting like "I'll go ya mate!"
All thoughts of the sheep were cast aside, The bike spluttered and died, however it was not long before he took off back to where he had come. I returned to the bike and as I did the dust cleared enough for me to see him return to the same spot I first saw him and with clearer view noticed there were about 10 little baby emus down there.
Whoops.
Now the bike. well it was ok minus the chain, I had a 10mm so fixed the chain and started it up, then I had to collect the sheep and take them a long way around, it was quite a job ad took me well over an hour to get them into the next paddock but I never really held a grudge, It was then I named him, Absurd.
Everything about him was Absurd, where he was nesting, the time of season, and of course a 6 foot flightless bird. I figured with end of the season he would lead his mob back to the scrub country and i'd never see him again. Anyway I took the sheep the long way around to avoid the hassle.
Surprise he came back the following year, thankfully his missus chose a different spot, about 80 metres up the fence line in the corner, at least out of the way of the damn gate. I began to note his behaviour more and one morning on a bore run I noticed he was off the nest and running around seemingly in distress, as I passed by on the other side of the fence I noticed it, a pile of broken eggs, the whole clutch just decimated, and he was none too happy about it. On dusk that night I spotted 2 foxes, which rarely pair for long so I concluded they were breeding, and luckily I caught them around the trough, this gave me ample time to shoot the pair and I hung them on the fence.
That week a few local farm lads and I decided to do some shooting over a few nights in the area and got a bunch of cats and foxes, I also ran into some other semi local hunters and explained to them about Absurd also giving them permission to enter his block and the one south of it and shoot anything that wasn't a sheep, emu or kangaroo.
A week or so later I went passed there were 2 cats and another fox on the fence about half a mile down from Absurd's nest, again he disappeared over the ranges and into the scrub, and again the following year he returned. This time I was ready and I even stopped a ways up from him dumping a bucket of water and one of grain over the fence and a small biscuit of hay in case he wanted nesting material.
It worked he raised 11 chicks that year and eventually led them off into the scrub..
over the years I learned to read his behaviour and he became more familiar with my comings and goings until I was able to get this pic.
This is how close I could get even with him on the nest, Of course I am on all fours here and if he so much as raised his head a few inches I would be scurrying back to the ute quick smart.
However out here a bucket of water and some oats does go a long way.
I do not know how old he is but it was 11 years since we first ran across each other that fateful day until he wasn't there one year, Boss said he was there 7 years before I came, and every time I see a mob of emus in the scrub country I have to wonder how many of those boys and girls were raised by him, my total would have it at 100 bare minimum, one year he raised 18, but still not one other emu from the surrounding areas comes down into that barren place.
He was literally the saying "an emu up a tree", as in out of place in every way.
He was Absurd.
©J. W. Newell 2024
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