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Spring bird life

Spring bird life

Friday Sept 6. In the middle of Coffs Harbour, a family of Powerful Owls.

two young Powerful Owls, adult above left
two young Powerful Owls, adult above left

The two adults took no notice of me, but the two young kept bobbing heads side to side, keeping me triangulated, in focus.

young Powerful Owls
young Powerful Owls

The first time I saw a Powerful  Owl, I was night-spotting in Sydney’s Royal National park. The owl had a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo in its talons (they take possums, gliders and birds roosting in the canopy). The cockatoo looked tiny which gives a sense of the size of Australia’s largest owl.

Powerful Owl dinner
Powerful Owl dinner
Powerful Owl pellet
Powerful Owl, pellet

Pellet – the mass of undigested parts of a bird’s food that some bird species regurgitate. This one is as large as they get.

Owls have weak bills and often prey is swallowed whole. Unlike most birds, owls have no crop, food passes straight into the foregut (they don’t have a true stomach).The foregut has weak acidity so only soft tissues are digested and only a small opening into the rest of the digestive tract, so undigested material is compacted into an oval pellet and then regurgitated. Pellets are useful for discovering the diet of owls.

 

adult Powerful Owl
adult Powerful Owl

Saturday: a flock of Scarlet Honeyeaters.

Sunday: at Nambucca cemetery (cemeteries often good for fauna and flora)

Osprey Nambucca cemetery
Osprey, Nambucca cemetery

 

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