Hi Murray
Thanks for that - and interesting photos!
I wasn't suggesting that breeding on the mainland and migration should
be mutually exclusive! No reason why both shouldn't happen, as is the
case with Pink Robin, and I assume several other species.
My main point was that if there are summer populations as well, it could
complicate the resolution of ID characters if this wasn't recognised.
Cheers, Chris.
On 06/11/2013 04:10 PM, Murray Lord wrote:
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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