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
|
