Frankie, the emu, is finding her voice at Healesville Sanctuary, marching to her own rhythm as she takes her first steps towards independence.
The large flightless bird has started making rumbling drumming sounds and posturing as part of a courtship communication behaviour.
She stands tall, tilts her head and flares her neck feathers taking slow deliberate steps to assert her presence.
Healesville Sanctuary keeper Ben Southorn said these behaviours are common of female emus, in fact Frankie’s mother is so great at vocalising, she is named ‘Drum.’
“It can be a surprising if you haven’t seen this behaviour before. Often, people think it is me making the sound,” Mr Southorn said.
“Female Emus inflate an air sack at the front of their throat and then they reverberate noise through that to make a drumming sound which can travel up to two kilometres to attract a mate.”
The sound is also important to deter other females from the territory.
The drumming typically intensifies in the lead up to breeding season and when the females reach maturity.
In the wild, female emus would have a pick of multiple males to breed with.
Male emus do their own form of communication.
The noise doesn’t travel as far and sounds more like a grunt.
The drumming behavior can last a couple of months.
Zookeepers hope to find Frankie a mate in the future.
Sanctuary visitors can find two emus at the front entrance, a male and female pair called Blinky and Drum.
Frankie, their offspring lives on the Woodlands Track near the World of Platypus.
Learn more about these beautiful big birds at the daily keeper talk held at 1pm.
Emus are Australia’s largest native bird species and can be found in woodlands and arid environments across the country.
They are classified as Least Concern with a stable population according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list.
