-G'day, guys. It's Robert Irwin here.
And I'm backstage at "The Tonight Show"
with my little friend Giselle.
Giselle, she is so cute. [ Ostrich chirping ]
She's a baby ostrich. So, you can hear those little --
[ Ostrich chirping ]
the little calls that she's making there.
It kind of almost sounds like a cellphone ringing.
Those little calls there.
And the little chicks, they make this call
just almost kind of calling out to the rest of their group.
They'll make this little kind of chirping call.
It's very, very cute.
Now, ostriches are actually the largest bird in the world.
Right now she's quite small. She's only about two months old.
But she'll grow up to be very, very large.
In fact, ostrich can get over 260 pounds.
260 pounds when they're full size.
So that's a really big bird.
They're a member of the ratite family,
and that includes emus, which you'll find in Australia,
other more rare birds like cassowaries, kiwis.
They'll all part of the ratite family.
And the ostrich is the biggest of those.
So, when they're little like this, unfortunately,
a lot of predators would be trying
to eat these guys in the wild.
They're like a little chicken.
So, what they do is they have this kind of muddled color,
and that color just helps them blend in, in the wild.
So they'll always try to stick to the really tall grass
or thick, dense bushland so that they can remain hidden.
They have that really long neck
and quite a large head compared to their body.
But their brains are really quite small.
Their brain is actually smaller than the size of their eye.
So it's absolutely tiny. They have very big eyes.
And you can see that most of their head
is taken up by the beak and the eyes.
And they actually have these little eyelashes,
these little feathers that look exactly like eyelashes
that come off the eyes.
And that helps to keep things out of their eyes,
just like what people have.
Another way that they can avoid predators is by speed.
They are so fast.
Ostriches can reach speeds of over 40 miles an hour.
That's when they're really, really running fast.
They can reach a sprint.
40 K's an hour. 40 miles an hour.
I keep thinking 40 kilometers an hour.
In Australia, we measure it by kilometers an hour.
But miles an hour. Which is even faster.
So, what they'll do is they'll actually use
those really long legs to help them take really long strides.
They can go over 10 feet in a single stride.
And so they'll really start to rack up a lot of speed.
There you go.
See, as she calms down,
she's actually kind of settled herself into my lap.
So it's a nice, little place for her to stay.
And this little ostrich, if she ever travels somewhere,
she takes her companion chickens with her.
She actually lives with chickens that she absolutely loves.
Giselle has formed this bond with the chickens
and just loves them.
Wherever she goes, she has to have
her little companions with her.
She's just adorable.
They also have very powerful legs, too.
So, when they reach adult size,
the males will actually fight with one another.
And you can tell that it's a male ostrich
because they have a completely different coloration.
They're a very stark, black-and-white color,
whereas the females are all brown.
So when this girl grows up,
she'll be this muddled brown color,
but the males are black and white.
When the males come together and fight for dominance,
they use those big, strong legs to kick one another.
And this can also be used as a form of defense, too.
They could easily probably kill a lion with one kick
and definitely do a lot of damage to people, as well,
if you ever come into confrontation.
But that is very, very rare.
Usually in the wild, ostriches,
they like just to keep to themselves.
They can be quite shy.
But Giselle certainly isn't shy at all.
She's letting everyone know she's here.
[ Ostrich chirping ]
Now, there's an old tale about ostriches,
that they'll bury their head in the sand.
If they're afraid or if they're a little bit wary,
they'll just bury their head into the sand.
And that's not entirely true.
When they nest, they do actually turn their eggs.
So they dig a little...in the ground to lay their eggs.
And then they'll stick their head into that hole
and turn the eggs around to help with incubation.
So, when they do that,
it does look like they're burying their head in the sand.
But this is just -- They only do that for nesting.
See the little wings there that --
She just perked them up before.
And, of course, they're completely flightless.
Ostriches cannot fly.
They do have wings, but they can't use them.
It would be -- Yeah. It certainly wouldn't work.
[ Laughs ] It just doesn't work.
A 260-pound bird could not get off the ground.