Hunter in the path of danger
MOST of us who have taken an interest in birds over the years would know, or at least know of the boobook.
Its beautiful, haunting call is as much a part of the Australian bush at night as that of the kookaburra who announces dawn with laughter.
It is an owl in the Ninox family, a bird found throughout Australia and New Zealand . . . and it is there that the story of the boobook takes an interesting turn.
There are about five species of boobook in Australia, with one a rare visitor and another so scarce its population is barely surviving.
The most abundant and widespread, the one we usually find locally, is the southern boobook.
It used to nest in the old hollow trees along the Barwon River through Geelong before suburbia spread so far along the valley.
It still breeds in places like the Brisbane Ranges and Otway hinterlands, and probably in farmland where some big old gum trees remain.
It hunts using a wait-and- see way, perching on a low branch or even a fence post, and drops silently on any small animals it sees — mice, frogs, large beetles and moths.
Unfortunately, the watching-perch is sometimes a roadside fence-post because potential prey is easily seen on the bitumen road.
Then the hunter becomes vulnerable to an approaching vehicle with fatal consequences for the bird.
It is sad to see the results of these accidents, the mangled remains left on the roadside.
In Tasmania there is another boobook which, by virtue of DNA analysis, has been proven to be the New Zealand species that has the awful name of morepork.
Like many of Tasmania’s birds, but notably orange-bellied and swift parrots, some moreporks migrate across Bass Strait in autumn.
In appearance they are very similar to our local boobooks, with only minor differences such as the colour of their eyes!
What happens to our boobooks when the moreporks arrive, we don’t know.
Perhaps they move north to make way for the visitors.
About now, or sometime in coming weeks, the Tasmanian birds will depart, to raise their families in the island home. Wildlife information and questions can be sent to ppescott@gmail.com