Amusing animal behaviour

Varminting and vertebrate pest control. Small game, hunting feral goats, foxes, dogs, cats, rabbits etc.

Amusing animal behaviour

Post by Blr243 » 27 Jan 2020, 2:09 pm

Last night after midnight out on the open flat I sopotted some unusual shenanigans that I just had to go get a closer look at. A solo emu was carrying on out in the open like it was at a rave party , it was half heartedly running away from two foxes that were Chaseing it but it knew they could not catch it so it was just a game for the emu ( buggered if I know what the foxes were doing thinking they could take on an emu anyway ) there were no emu chicks so this was not a lead away distraction. Ever seen a boxer taunt and tease his opponent? By dropping their arms and poking faces at their opponent .... that’s exactly what this emu was doing. After a little run he would stop and do a couple of clockwise 360 dedgree turns on the spot then immediately do it again anti clockwise, then he would flap his little wings and frantically bow his head up and down and shake it all around all around Then a twenty metre dash then more clockwise and anti clockwise turns on the spot. The funniest thing to watch. As soon as I tried to film it the emu stopped and behaved normally. Fortunately the antics of the emu distracted the foxes enough that I was able to shoot one of them. Still struggling to find pigs but I got five foxes last night
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Re: Amusing animal behaviour

Post by RoginaJack » 27 Jan 2020, 2:18 pm

I've seen plovers do a similar wounded bird act to draw predators away from chicks. Could have been doing the same, had the chicks hidden....
Boom, Boom! Tikka, Tikka, Boom! Shoot first, video later.
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Re: Amusing animal behaviour

Post by Blr243 » 27 Jan 2020, 4:56 pm

This was actually a freshly ploughed paddock so was barren as a moonscape , so nowhere to hide chicks. Rabbit hunting at Texas years ago I saw a fox harassing the hell out of an emu to get at her chicks and the fox was darting every where back and forth so fast that he eventually got a chick and then I shot the fox so unfortunately he did not get a chance to enjoy his dinner
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Re: Amusing animal behaviour

Post by Die Judicii » 28 Jan 2020, 10:05 am

Maybe no chicks were evident,,,,,, but it doesn't take long for eggs to be laid and I'd be guessing there were freshly laid eggs
there somewhere.
Or, maybe being a "freshly ploughed" paddock the nest may have been destroyed, and the bird was pretty p!ssed off and still
guarding the area.
They will return to the same general area (if not precise) each year to nest.

What you witnessed is the classic draw away tactics employed by the emu to guard the nest/eggs/chicks.

Seeing as you are pretty observant,, and out in the field quite often,,,,,,, I will pose a question to you and any-one else that may have
witnessed the following at some time.

? Have you ever witnessed a bunch of rabbits playing what we humans call "Ring a Ring a Rosy" ????
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Re: Amusing animal behaviour

Post by Sergeant Hartman » 28 Jan 2020, 10:21 am

That's interesting behavior.

DJ they weren't mind controlled mutant rabbits?
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Re: Amusing animal behaviour

Post by Die Judicii » 28 Jan 2020, 11:07 am

Ziad wrote:That's interesting behavior.

DJ they weren't mind controlled mutant rabbits?


:lol: No Mate,,,,, definitely not.
When I was in early years of High School, I had an old bloke that lived nearby,,, and he spent most of his life as a rabbit trapper.
(he had 6 children and put all through university on his earnings as a trapper)
He told me one day about rabbits playing that game,,, and added that he had only seen it twice himself.

I thought that maybe he was off with the pixies,, and never gave it much more thought.

Until,,,,,,, I witnessed it myself years after. (I've only ever seen it the once,,, and chances of seeing it again now are pretty slim since Calicci)

The old trapper was long dead,,,, but soon as I saw the rabbits playing, I watched in awe, and remembered the old bloke.
I do not fear death itself... Only its inopportune timing!
I've come to realize that,,,,, the two most loving, loyal, and trustworthy females in my entire life were both canines.
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Re: Amusing animal behaviour

Post by Blr243 » 28 Jan 2020, 11:39 am

DJ. Now that you offer a more thorough explanation of the possibilities of eggs laid or guarding old nest site , the draw away theory makes more sense than my rave party theory because emus would not necessarily know where to buy exstacy ... I did a google about the dancing rabbits but no luck sound like a rare thing to see anyway. While looking for rabbits playing it reminded me of the time I was working on a place where a little boy was doing something with the door of his rabbit hutch and his great big Rottweiler jumped in and grabbed one ( bugger me I just remembered it was actually guine pigs that he had ) The dog growled and salivated as we were trying to prise open his jaws because he reallly wanted to keep his new toy. The entire guinea pig was trapped within a cage off teeth with only bits of fur protruding around the edges . The guinea pig must have been thinking I’m done .... after we got it from the dogs mouth it did not look like a fluffy Guineapig anymore , covered in saliva and flat we put it back in the hutch and moved the dog away. ...laying in the bottom of its hutch it looked like a wet black sock that had accidentally been dropped onto the laundry floor and forgotten about ...... but some stories have a happy ending , ... after all the dog saliva had dried up the guinea pigs fur fluffed up again and it was good to go but perhaps now a little prone to anxiety attacks , nightmares and/or a lifetime fear of big black dogs
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Re: Amusing animal behaviour

Post by Die Judicii » 28 Jan 2020, 12:36 pm

Some animal antics are funny, and also odd.
What you said about the guinea pig reminded me of this,

I had a Jack Russell x Foxie some years back,, and my eldest daughter in Sth Aust had a pet Lop Eared Rabbit.

My dog used to kill wild rabbits as fast as she could catch them,,,, yet for some reason never ever harmed the pet one.
They used to play odd games between them in the backyard.

I'm not certain, but I think my daughter still has photos of them as well as a short video.
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I've come to realize that,,,,, the two most loving, loyal, and trustworthy females in my entire life were both canines.
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