Greetings all,
Decided that this weekend would be a good one for poking around the
Brisbane Ranges National Park (west of Melbourne) for Powerful Owl. So, on
Saturday afternoon my wife and I drove up to what must have been the only
part of Victoria to actually get rain that day. We arrived at the Stoney
Creek picnic area around 5:00. A bit of birding before sundown revealed a
group of 3 fan-tailed cuckoos moving slowly through the area calling loudly
all the way. Otherwise there were no other birds of note just the usual
with lots of Brown Treecreepers, Fantails, W-B Scrubwrens, Yellow-tufted
HEs, White-eared HEs etc.
During the dead time around sunset we cooked dinner then once it was really
dark we started breaking out the spotlight. A Powerful Owl commenced
calling around 7:00-7:30. It sounded very close but no matter how hard we
tried we just could not get a look at it. Around 9:00 a Boobook started up
also very close to the picnic area. Spotlighting revealed a huge source of
Powerful Owl "tucker" with lots of Ringtail Possums, a few Brushtails and
some Sugar Gliders (BTW-do they have any eyeshine at all????). There were
also Koala in the picnic area and unfortunately a fox as well.
Having heard two owls but seen none we headed out. The consolation prize
came on the drive out with a great closeup look at a Barn Owl which was
hunting a very large hay stack.
So not too bad a night with 3 owls (although only 1 species seen) and 5
mammals.
Scott
P. Scott Chandry
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