While Ive been riding around down here in Patagonia Ive seen hundreds of those Ostrich/Emu like Nandus (or Rheas) and I have to say that I think they would be very hard to catch :)
Its been quite hard to get good close up pictures of them because they are quite "flighty".
They clearly have land predators and are afraid of me and the bike whenever I even just pull up on the side of the road near them. When they get scared, they of course just run casually away.
But, if you are quite close to them then they really run... And they dodge as they run...changing directions seemingly randomly as they go.
But, they add a trick to their dodging and that is that at the same time as they dodge, they sort of "flash" one wing in a drop and raise fashion, and from behind it gives a very strong impression that the body centre-of-mass has moved to one side ... presumably the side they are dodging too... But, Not So!... They sometimes do and sometimes dont dodge that way... It makes it extremely hard for a pursuer to adapt and dodge the same way.
Its very effective .... Not that I have actually been chasing them... Ill leave that to the Pumas (I presume that is the natural predator for these large birds).
Its been quite hard to get good close up pictures of them because they are quite "flighty".
They clearly have land predators and are afraid of me and the bike whenever I even just pull up on the side of the road near them. When they get scared, they of course just run casually away.
But, if you are quite close to them then they really run... And they dodge as they run...changing directions seemingly randomly as they go.
But, they add a trick to their dodging and that is that at the same time as they dodge, they sort of "flash" one wing in a drop and raise fashion, and from behind it gives a very strong impression that the body centre-of-mass has moved to one side ... presumably the side they are dodging too... But, Not So!... They sometimes do and sometimes dont dodge that way... It makes it extremely hard for a pursuer to adapt and dodge the same way.
Its very effective .... Not that I have actually been chasing them... Ill leave that to the Pumas (I presume that is the natural predator for these large birds).
