A friend who lives on the Geelong Grammar Corio campus rang me on the weekend
to say she had a dead Barn Owl in her back yard. Unfortunately, by the time I
got the message the bird had been buried. My friend thought it had been killed
by a cat, as there were major chest injuries.
Tonight she rang again to say that her son had seen a Barn Owl being harrassed
by a Raven yesterday - after the first one was buried, and in much the same
place. It seems like we've had a pair of Barn Owls there for a little while -
I saw one a couple of hundred meters from their house about 3 weeks ago. Only
one raven was seen attacking the owl yesterday. It seemed to be attacking the
chest area. The boy chased the raven off, and the owl flew away as well.
Is it unusual for single Little Ravens to attack Barn Owls, and has a fatal
attack been recorded before?
Of course, it is not certain that the first owl was killed by a raven, and a
mob may have been present at that attack. I would have thought a Barn Owl
capable of defending itself against a raven, and why did these birds hang
around. Is it possible they were nesting? There was no Barn Owl nesting
record for this part of Victoria during the last Atlas period. What else would
make a Barn Owl hang around to be attacked by other birds?
---
Russell Woodford
Geelong VIC
--------------------------------------------
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
|
