For the past
couple of weeks, an owl has been roosting in our trees.
He is a Southern Boobook or Mopoke owl, and spends the day tucked away in the tangle of branches
above the woodshed, where the neighbouring callistemon, lemon tree and our tallow tree, all meet. It’s dark and spidery up there, perfect for sleeping.
Similar to other
owls, boobooks hunt at night and sleep during the day, though I’m not sure this
owl gets much rest. The callistemon' are just coming
into flower, so the trees are busy with birds, none of which are happy too come
across a sleeping owl, especially one whose diet includes them and/or their chicks! Wattle birds,
angry at the best times, screech and cluck their disapproval, honey-eaters and silver
eyes fly about him twittering wildly, snapping their beaks loudly, as do the mistletoe birds. It’s a
ruckus we can hear inside the house, and it is exactly this noise that led us to find him in the first place (we had see what was going on), but the owl seems oblivious, and never moves a muscle.
Habitat loss is
the main threat to these owls, they nest in tree hollows, so we are considering
building a nest box. Of course it would have to be positioned 'out of cat reach' in the tallow tree, which unfortunately is also 'out of ‘ladder’
reach, so we’re not sure how we’ll get it high enough. Hopefully though, the owl will
hang around until we work it out.
