birding-aus

Southern Boobook family

To:
Subject: Southern Boobook family
From: Michael Todd <>
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 23:56:16 +1100
Hello all,

I'm fortunate at the moment to have a family of Boobooks lodging in the backyard (in Toronto, Lake Macquarie, south of Newcastle). I believe they nested in a large Spotted Gum next door, but are using our backyard as the creche. For about a week there were two fledglings roosting in different trees each morning. Then a third fledgling joined them and they began to use a large Spotted Gum that is choked by a giant bougainvillea, about 20 metres high. They've been using the bougainvillea for a bout a week now along with one of the parents. The other parent only occasionally roosts with the family.
At dusk the young'uns fly to nearby trees and chitter continually while the 
parents frantically fly back and forth bringing as many large insects as 
they can find.
The adults are very dark red in colour, similar to the colouration of the 
Red Boobook subspecies from the Atherton tableland. One bird has virtually 
no white markings on the face at all while the other has a small patch of 
white between the eyes. However, both birds have far more white spots on 
the shoulders and wings than Red Boobooks that I've seen.
While on Red Boobooks I might mention a Red Boobook that I photographed in 
rainforest at Kuranda SF (Clohesy Fig Tree) in May this year. It had some 
features that definitely made it a Red Boobook however it had some features 
of the nominate subspecies as well, including some white markings on the 
face. I think that they must be a very variable species and I'm a little 
doubtful about the distinctiveness of the Red Boobook.
Cheers

Mick


Mick Todd
Toronto, NSW, Australia


--------------------------------------------
Birding-Aus is now on the Web at
www.birding-aus.org
--------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message 'unsubscribe
birding-aus' (no quotes, no Subject line)
to 


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU