I have seen similar behaviour at Hattah in late 2006. In that case it was just
after dawn so I don't think cooling off was the reason.
The emu walked right across the shallow lake with just head and part of the
neck visible for most of the time.
Dog-like shaking ensued when it came out of the water.
Damian
On 19/12/2012, at 3:52 PM, "Euan Moore" <> wrote:
> I have been going through a series of movie clips from our wildlife
> monitoring camera. It was set up at the edge of a small dam on our property
> in western Victoria.
>
> Emus were making daily visits to the dam, mainly to drink but on some
> visits they got right into the water. This involved flopping down so that
> their bodies were almost completely submerged. At times they would roll
> over with legs going in all directions. There would occasionally be some
> preening while in the water. After some time in the water they would stand
> up, sometimes shake like a shaggy dog and leave the water. For the next few
> seconds there would be a cascade of water dropping from their very
> non-waterproof feathers.
>
> It could be a way of getting rid of vermin. The other possibility is that
> they were cooling down as the incidents happened around the middle of the
> day when temperatures would have been in the high 30s. I've heard of emus
> swimming to cross rivers but this was deliberate bathing.
>
> The nearest alternative water supply was another farm dam about 1.5km away
> on a neighbouring property.
>
> I have never seen this sort of behaviour before and wonder how common it is.
> One of the advantages of the camera is that we get to see things that we
> would not see if we were physically present.
>
> Euan
>
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