I concur with Graham!
I have always been an owl fan, collecting images and figurines all my life.
Let me share my own recent owl experience.
A couple of months ago I received notification from my council that they
were going to do powerline clearance pruning of our street trees. Last time
they did this they kindly stomped all over the correas and other natives I
have planted in my naturestrip. To circumvent a repeat of this I decided to
do the pruning myself . One evening while up a tall ladder in my street tree
(Lophostemon confertus) finishing the job I was amazed when an owl - a young
Boobook I assume - landed in the tree an arms length from me. It too was
amazed at what it found and left immediately. I had observed a lot of poo at
that point but assumed this was from the huge number of Indian Turtledoves
and Feral Pigeons my neighbour insisted on feeding in my yard, (I won't bore
you with reasons) or the local Indian Miner tribe. (I subsequently looked
beneath for pellets but could find none. - the local flying foxes use my
trees - tall Eucs to perch in and masticate palm fruits etc so I have all
sorts of strange debris from that!)
I'm guessing the attraction of my home for the owl was the only large trees
for quite some distance and the large number of mice in my front yard
attracted by my neighbours grain feeding of ferals.
I live in very urban (no bush) Coburg (inner Melbourne suburb) 1 block from
Bell St.
I've never heard owls calling here, and spend a lot of time in my garden at
night. Have others noticed urban owls refrain from calling, or is this
because they are unlikely to breed in such an area so have little need for
mating/territorial calls?
Wendy
ps I am in a between circuits, insulated wire section of the power grid.
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