Chris,
Jerry Olsen and Stephen Debus have an article in the latest issue of Australian
Field Ornithology discussing migration of Tasmanian Boobooks. While I haven’t
seen it yet, I believe they also raise the point you have, that perhaps these
birds are residents on the mainland and not migrants.
That said, one of the few mainland specimens is from Gabo Island, and if my
memory is correct there are records of boobooks landing on ships in Bass
Strait, so there is anecdotal evidence pointing the other way.
At one point I obtained some Atlas data on reporting rates for Boobooks through
the year in both Tasmania and Victoria. The Tasmanian numbers didn’t look that
different from Victoria. So if there is migration, this tends to suggest it’s
small scale.
I know that there’s some genetic work being done overseas on the whole Boobook
complex so it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Nikolas Haass
mentioned I have some photos of Boobook specimens. If anyone is interested
they can be found at http://www.pbase.com/mklord/boobooks
Murray Lord
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