Who is the killer?

[Graeme Stevens <>]

Gordon,

I have seen a shot of a PO with a Brush Turkey and I have shots myself with a Fruit Bat so I don't imagine they would have any problem at all with a Frogmouth

Graeme Stevens

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From: Birding-Aus <> on behalf of Gordon Claridge <>
Sent: Friday, 14 December 2018 6:11 PM
To: Robin and Rupert Irwin
Cc:
Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Who is the killer?

 

The possum with a hole in its side sounds like Powerful Owl.  I’d have expected two punctures, but they can be hidden under the dense fur - or maybe the PO didn’t get a good grip on it.

Are you sure there wasn’t a wound across the spine -it takes just one bite to paralyse the possum? See photos below.  I’m not sure whether they can kill a possum just with their claws, but having seen their feet close up I would not rule it out.

In the incident below the PO took only the head the first night, leaving the body on the ground.  Because we were aware that this is a common PO strategy we left the body where we found it (after photographing) and set up a wildlife camera - the PO was back very soon after sunset and took the body away, after posing delightfully for the camera.

We have also had situations where the only evidence of predation has been a pile of fur.  In one case it was a small scatter of possum fur with a few drops of blood through it (right under the bird feeder where the possums regularly come to clean up anything left by the birds).  I expect that it was grabbed on the feeder and then the PO sat on one of the side perches of the feeder to despatch it before flying off.  Another time it was a small scatter of wallaby joey fur (characteristically “crinkly” as distinct from adult fur) on a patch of lawn where wallabies graze at night.

Does anyone know whether POs take Tawny Frogmouths?  I’d have thought that they would be in the right size range for a PO meal.

Gordon Claridge

On 14 Dec 2018, at 10:33 AM, Robin and Rupert Irwin <> wrote:

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We live on 3 acres just outside Torquay in Victoria.  There is of course quite a bit of activity at night but in the last few weeks we have had 3 occurrences which have left us wondering.  The first thing we found was a small amount of fur and an entrail at least 2 feet long, and absolutely nothing else.  The second was a possum with a hole in its side and no other damage.  Finally we found these attached feathers under pine trees - again nothing else.  The feathers are 23cms long.  Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Robin Irwin  

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