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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Hi Euan, I have seen this behaviour at Hattah Kulkyne NP in NW Vic. It was in the 1980s I think. In the middle of a hot day the emu came down to one of the main lakes near the main camping ground and sat down in the water so it looked somewhat like a large swan. I did not see any flailing about or lolling behaviour like you captured, but one can’t blame it for not having a full wash with an audience!! My impression was that it was cooling off. Wendy Moore