Gundabooka National Park; another dryland treat

When I was a young feller growing up in Adelaide, the phrase 'back of Bourke' (an idiom for somewhere very remote and 'outback') evoked strong emotions in me; I really wanted to explore 'out there'. I did so eventually but it took a long time (and I confess that the town of Bourke no longer seems so remote!). In this semi-arid area of central northern New South Wales are several valuable reserves, one of the largest and most impressive of them being Gundabooka National Park. This park, along with the adjacent Gundabooka State Conservation Area, covers some 94,000 hectares of varied dry country landscapes about 70km south of Bourke, to the west of the highway to Cobar. Moreover the Toorale National Park and State Conservation Area, across the Darling River to the north-west, adds another 85,000 hectares to form a massive reserve system. 

(There is a significant and unfortunate caveat here though: in a State Conservation Area minerals and petroleum exploration and mining 'may be permitted', which would considerably reduce the value of the reserve. As far I am aware no such activities are currently planned for these areas, but the option is there.)

The park was gazetted in 1996 and covered 46,000 hectares, comprising the former pastoral leases of Ben Lomond and Belah; the 20,000ha of Mulgowan station were added to the south in 2002. Finally Yanda's 28,000ha in 2005 became the Gundabooka State Conservation Area to the north.

Mount Gunderbooka (yes, this is a variation on the spelling of the park itself) from
Little Mountain Lookout, near the Dry Tank picnic area and campground in the
centre of the national park. The mulga plains in the foreground are typical of much
of the park.

Approximate position of Gundabooka, just south of Bourke.
(It's fuzzier than I'd like, apologies.)

I have found it surprisingly difficult to find a usable map (or indeed any map) of
the park - this is a real flaw of the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife
Service (NPWS) web site (probably a spinoff of their lack of resources). This one is
taken from the management plan of the park, but in the process has lost
most of its useful definition. To give you a slightly better idea I've added the red numbers.
1 is the main access to the park, along Ben Lomond Road off the Bourke-Cobar Highway.
2 is the Dry Tank campground and picnic ground (the only campground in the
national park itself), and the walk to Little Mountain.
3 is the Yapa (Mulgowan) art site on Mulareenya Creek.
4 is the Bourke to Louth road along the Darling River.
5 is the Yanda campground on the Darling River in the State Conservation Area.
(Actually if you click on it to enlarge it, it's not too bad.)

We were only there for three nights recently, so didn't explore nearly all of it, but focussed on the area around the campground and the Yapa art site. Next time we plan to camp at the Yanda campground on the Darling in the state conservation area. Our timing was a bit unfortunate, in that the growth from earlier rains had already flowered and seeded, and the burst from recent rains which had closed the park until shortly before our arrival was still coming. Since then further rains have created another excellent wildflower cover I am told!

Drifts of mulga phyllodes (pseudo-leaves) across the ground left by recent flash
flooding in the campground; new growth is coming through. 

As mentioned earlier, much of the park is dominated by woodlands of Mulga Acacia aneura, including dense stands of regrowth around the campground.

Our quite idyllic campsite among the Mulga. Between and behind the individual sites
the regrowth was dense enough to make walking through it difficult; you get some sense
of this in the background here. It will thin naturally as the trees mature.

Much of the Mulga was flowering, in response to the earlier rains.

Scattered throughout the park is Bimble (or Poplar) Box Eucalyptus populnea; both the species name and the alternative English name refer to the rounded leaves which supposedly resemble poplar leaves (personally I think it's the other way round, but that's just me). It's one of my favourite eucalypts.

Bimble Box, above and below.

This tree was growing along the very pleasant walking track to Little Mountain Lookout, which leads out of the campground/picnic ground.

There was however one worrying aspect about the trees that we hadn't previously encountered.

After a while with no such ambushes we decided that perhaps they were only dangerous
during breeding season?

It's a five kilometre return walk, mostly flat until a short moderate climb on a well-built
track with many laid sandstone steps (some of which slabs are clearly very heavy indeed),
onto a gravel ridge which looks out over the plain to the Gunderbooka Range.

Mount Gunderbooka across the mulga from Little Mountain Lookout.
It is the highest point in the vicinity, 500 metres above sea level
and some 300-350 metres above the surrounding plains.

On this gravel ridge the vegeation changes, with a shrubby understorey, including at least two or three species of emu bush, Eromophila spp., though only one was flowering while we were there.

Crimson Emu (or Turkey) Bush Eremophila latrobei, truly a spectacular flower.
Eremophila, along with Banksias and the orchids, are my favourite Australian flower
groups. This one is found right across the dry inland of Australia.

Narrow-leaf Waxflower Philotheca (formerly Eriostemon) linearis,
another shrub in flower at the lookout when we were there. It is scattered
in rocky habitats in dry inland NSW and South Australia.

The other walking track we took was the short one to the Yapa (Mulgowan) art site in the far south of the park, accessed by a well-signposted road to the south off Ben Lomond Road (7.5k from the park entrance, 12k back from the campground). When we were there we encountered a sign warning of ‘rough road, drive with care’, but in the event it was smoother than the Ben Lomond Road. The walk itself is only 700 metres each way and quite easy on a good track over a low rocky ridge to the Mulareenya Creek; the warning on the website about this 'challenging yet rewarding walking track' should be treated as a somewhat extreme example of the precautionary principle. This is a site of great significance to the Ngemba and Baakandji people, who co-manage the park through a Memorandum of Understanding with the Head of NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, which commits both parties to cooperatively manage both the cultural and natural heritage of the reserves.

A feature of our walk was the profusion of flowering Wonga Vine Pandorea pandorana sprawling over rocks and other vegetation.

Wonga Vine is a spectacular climber when in flower.

A typical scene along the walk, with reddish sandstone boulders,
Wilga Geijera parviflora and White Cypress Pine Callitris glaucophylla.

The view across Mulyareena Creek to the art site among the boulders and cliffs opposite.

The art is fenced for protection (pretty much universal now for publicly accessed sites) but not interpreted; I'm not in a position to know whether this is intentional or if the resources have simply not yet been made available. There is no restriction on photography however.

At the start of the walk, by the carpark, is a very pleasant new covered picnic area at the edge of a grassy woodland flood plain.

Trees present include Coolabah Apple Angophora melanoxylon, Bimble Box and
the somewhat curious Supplejack Ventilago viminalis.

This Supplejack tree began life as a small climber, scrambling through other vegetation,
then later developed a woody trunk to become a tree. Its family is Rhamnaceae.

Needless to say there was plenty of animal life but it was mostly windy and cool, so no reptiles were active. Here are some, in no particular order, except that I've left the birds to last this time. The walk to Little Mountain produced a few interesting small animals, most of which I can't properly identify.

My uneducated guess for this cockroach is Panesthia australis,
a nymph which hasn't yet developed wings.

My best offering for this one is one of the slant-faced grasshoppers, Family Acrididae.

A very hairy caterpillar which I certainly wasn't going to be touching!
However a passing flock of Black-faced Cuckooshrikes was feeding on something
on the ground and it could well have been these, as they are known to be
among the few birds to be able to do so.

Mulga Ants nest Polyrachis sp. They typically cover the mound with dropped Mulga
phyllodes; it is often asserted that this is to reduce overground flooding, but
as far as I'm aware this is just speculation.

Termite runway covered in soil to protect them from sunlight.

This spider wasp dragging an unfortunate paralysed orbweb spider was one of the
first animals I saw in the park, on my way to the toilet soon after arriving.
The spider's fate is to provide a living larder for the wasp's underground babies.

The only good think about this photo is that it was the only goat we saw in the park;
it was on top of the cliffs that houses the art site, which is always another reason to fence such sites.
This part of the world is notorious for extremely high numbers of feral goats which are
devastating the Mulga; some properties allow their numbers to build up,
then have them mustered for the goat meat industry.
The park is obviously doing a good job of managing them.

Most camp sites seem to have a memorable 'camp bird' species, which we come to associate with the camp as being regularly present there and often particularly 'friendly'. Dry Tank had two, we decided, of dramatically different sizes.

Emus Dromaius novaehollandia, father and one of his sons, approaching us
cautiously in response to my waving a hanky at them (it works from a car window too).
This photo also gives some idea of the dense Mulga around the camp ground -
it took a while to get even this clear a shot of them. They seemed to spend
a lot of time hanging around the camp, though there was no indication that
they were used to being fed.

Part of the same family crossing the camp road early one morning.

Red-capped Robins Petroica goodenovii were the other camp bird. We'd never
seen so many in a campground before! However as this photo suggests they
weren't nearly as easy to approach as the Emus were.

I've just realised that the rest of these bird photos were all taken around the campground too, with the exception of the falcon.

Brown Falcon Falco berigora sitting by the road on the drive back from the
Yapa art site. A common raptor over the entire continent, but no bird which is
being so obliging deserves to be ignored.

White-browed Treecreeper Climacteris affinis, the smallest of the Australian
treecreepers. On our first afternoon in camp there were several of these arid
land specialists on the tree trunks in and around our camp. I was quite excited
as I've generally found them to be wary and not easy to photograph (though that
could be just down to me of course). They would certainly have been eligible
for 'camp bird' status - except that we didn't see them in camp again for the
duration of our stay! (This incidentally is another name in the 'not
very useful' category - their eyebrow is actually not particularly conspicuous.
The boldly streaked undersides and face are the real giveaways.)

A bold little female Splendid Fairywren Malurus splendens inspecting me on
one of my early morning wanders. The male of the family hadn't yet moulted
into his spring finery, though others elsewhere on the trip had done so.

This Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo Chalcites basalis was calling from an exposed perch,
which is typical cuckoo behaviour. The fairywrens will need to be especially vigilant
when they start breeding!

And lastly this is a particularly abiding image for me of those morning walks,
a gorgeous male Mulga Parrot Psephotellus varius sitting up in the sun
and calling loudly.

I hope I can encourage you to put Gundabooka on your 'to visit' list. Even if you're not able to camp there next time you're in the area, it's an easy day trip from Bourke and well worth the effort - and there's more to see there than we managed this time too. Thanks for revisiting this beautiful park with me.

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER

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Owls; the ultimate night riders

I've been meaning to do a post on owls for some time now, but always felt that I didn't have enough decent photos to make it worth while. At this stage I'm probably not going to be able to improve on that any time soon, so rather than go on ignoring these wonderful birds I'll go with what I've got, rely on the owls to carry it, and hope you'll be tolerant!

Australian Boobook Ninox boobook, Nowra, NSW south coast. This roosting bird shows
the basic owl characteristics including very large eyes which can function at incredibly
low light levels, powerful bill, legs and claws, and feathered legs. All owls are carnivorous. 
The body and wing feathers are very soft and fringed to allow almost totally silent flight.
The fourth toe is very flexible, and can either face back (for a two forward/two back setup),
or forward (for three-forward/one back). You'll see both options in the photos which follow.
(There has been a lot of good work done recently on the complex of boobook species which
are found from eastern Asia, through the numerous islands north of Australia to
Australia itself and New Zealand.
Until recently it was called Southern Boobook N. novaeseelandiae, but the English name was
changed when previously included populations from the Lesser Sundas (including Timor),
Tasmania and New Zealand were all recognised as different species.)

One of the key things about owls is that they are, of course, mostly nocturnal (there are a few diurnal ones, but we can generalise to start with). This means that you either have to photograph them at night, while not hurting or scaring them with flashes, or find them in the daytime, when they're almost certainly going to be tucked away in foliage, away from the daytime birds which will harry them mercilessly if they can. Other people manage perfectly well of course, part of which might be due to better equipment, but mostly just better skills! A spinoff of this is that, while I can usually offer you photos of aspects of bird behaviour, pretty well all my owl photos show them roosting or staring down from a branch, and in a photo those two things look pretty similar I must admit!

The owls are a very successful group of hunting birds, with some 250 species found throughout the vegetated continents and they have occupied every habitat from the Arctic to the tropical rainforests. They are also an old group, with the oldest known fossil owl dating back 60 million years from a site in Wyoming. Owls comprise their own Order, with no obvious close relatives, though perhaps the daytime birds of prey (hawks etc) might be the closest. Within the Order there are two Families, the barn owls and the 'typical' or hawk owls, but the latter group totally dominates, with some 230 species to the barn owls' combined 20 or so. In Australia however the 10 breeding species are split evenly between the two Families.

Eastern Barn Owl Tyto javanica, Alice Springs. This is a 'rescue' owl at the excellent
Alice Springs Desert Park, free-flying but unable to be released. While it has the general
owl characteristics described above (here two toes forward and two back)
there are some obvious differences. The iris is dark, while in the majority of typical owls it is
pale, often yellow (the observation holds for all Australian species).
There is an obvious heart-shaped facial disc, fringed with stiff feathers, 
which acts as an external 'ear' to direct sound to the ear openings, hidden by the feathers.
(Other owls also have such a disc, but in most cases it is not as well developed as the barn owls' are.)
Not so obvious here is its lighter build and longer legs, or the difference in calls.
While typical owls in general have a call which is a variation on hooting,
barn owls have a rasping shriek or hiss.
(As with the boobook group discussed earlier, there have been major recent advances in
understanding barn owls relationships too. Until recently there was just one
Barn Owl Tyto alba recognised throughout the world, but now there are three.
'Ours' is found from Australia to southern Asia, while another is in Europe and
much of Africa, and the third in the Americas.)

Another very important owl characteristic isn't really shown in these photos either, and can only be properly seen from front-on.

American Barn Owl Tyto furcata Santa Cruz, Galápagos. This bird was roosting
in a rock crevice, trees being scarce commodities in most of the Galápagos.
Unlike nearly all other birds, its eyes are in the front of its face, enabling it
to have binocular vision; in most birds the eyes are on the sides of its
head, so the only way it can have the sort of 3D vision than an owl (and we)
regard as normal, is to turn the head from side to side.
This Sulphur-crested Cockatoo exemplifies the contrast.

I have sometimes wondered if owls are often described as 'wise' because we share this facial characteristic with them; ie they look a bit like us so must be wise! I wouldn't put any arrogance past us...

A couple more observations on barn owls and their differences from the 'main' owl Family, before a bit more on what makes owls so special, then going on to focus on the hooting majority. I'm very confident that the pale undersides of the Western Barn Owl (Tyto alba), its hair-raising screeches, silent flight and habit of roosting in church towers in Europe are the basis of many ghost stories. Members of the barn owl Family usually roost by day in hollows (presumably buildings were used by the Western Barn Owl when hollows were no longer available), whereas other owls make themselves as inconspicuous as possible within or behind foliage. Barn owls often don't defend a territory at all, and when they do it is usually by silent display. 'Typical' owls do so fiercely, and proclaim ownership with long hooting sessions.

Owls in general have other adaptations too that are of interest. For instance an owl can spread the bones of the lower mandible outwards, to extend the gape and enable large prey items to be swallowed whole. Like most carnivorous birds they regurgitate pellets of indigestible bones, feathers, fur and scales (which are invaluable in determining their diet).

Pellet from a Powerful Owl Ninox strenua which became a celebrity when it lived
in the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra for a few weeks in autumn 2007.
It left when it had exhausted the supply of Ringtail Possums and Sugar Gliders;
this pellet is clearly composed of fur and bones.

Owls have never evolved echolocation to help them hunt at night, so have remarkable vision, with very large eyes relative to their skull size. This leaves little room for muscles to move the eyes, so they have developed extremely flexible necks, with twice as many neck vertebrae as we do, and special adaptations to prevent blood flow from being constricted when they swivel their head through about 270 degrees. In addition to the overall size of the eyes, they have a very large maximum pupil size, to enhance light gathering when there isn't much of it. They also have a preponderance of rod cells over cone cells in the retina; rod cells are much more light sensitive, while cone cells are good at colour vision. Hence an owl can see well at low light levels, at the expense of distinguishing colour.

The very large eyes of this Tropical Screech Owl Megascops choliba are evident.
We were actually sitting patiently waiting for an Ocelot (that never appeared for the
two nights we were there) at a bait station in the Pantanal of south-western Brazil,
but this was a nice compensation. (The lighting allegedly doesn't bother the Ocelot,
but we saw no evidence of that! Luckily it didn't seem to faze the owl either.)
The screech owls form a group of some 23 species found throughout much of the
Americas; this species is found widely in South America.

Some of the most impressive owl adaptations however are in their hearing, and many cases they are known to swoop and catch prey that they can't see at all. In an experimental situation Western Barn Owls could catch mice in a totally darkened room by homing in on the rustle of their feet on the floor. Even in light, other owls can grab unseen mice from grass clumps or under snow. They hear roughly the same range of frequencies that we do, but hear ten times as well in the frequencies that correspond to rustling noises in grass or leaves. Their ear openings, like their eyes, are unusually large and are covered loosely by special feathers which don't interfere much with sound. The facial disc, which we mentioned earlier as being especially well-developed in barn owls, is another important factor in gathering and focusing sound. 

This Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus is not a barn owl, but has a facial disc which is
equally well developed. This beauty was perched by the roadside near Lake Titicaca in the
high, cold mountains in the far south-east of Peru late one afternoon. That would have been
enough for us, but our very experienced local guides had never seen one in this part of the world.
The nearest it comes to here normally is on the north coast of Peru, and that rarely.
This medium-large owl hunts mostly by night, but also is regularly active in the daytime
and evening, concentrating on small mammals. It is found right across the Northern
Hemisphere and the southern half of South America, making it not only the most
widely-distributed owl in the world, but is arguably the most widespread of any land bird

 

As an another example of that last comment, here is a Short-eared Owl of the Gálapagos
sub-species, roosting in a chasm on Genovesa, in the Pacific 1000km from South America.
Note that because this one isn't gripping a perch, it's spread its toes widely.

But back to owls' superpowers. One way owls use their hypersensitive hearing is to turn the head until the sound reaching each ear is at exactly the same volume - which of course occurs when the object/prey is exactly in front of the owl. But there's a second, even more amazing, mechanism in play too. If the source of a sound is off to the right, it not only sounds marginally louder on that side but arrives at the right ear fractionally sooner than it gets to the left. By turning the head again until the sound reaches both ears simultaneously, again the owl knows that the prey is now right in front. But, even without moving its head (which could alert the prey) it can locate the prey precisely within a 60 degree arc. And to achieve all this, the owl can distinguish a time difference between one ear and the other of just 30 millionths of a second! My brain threatens to shut down when I try to process that information.

In Australia all owl species nest in tree hollows, except the generally uncommon Eastern Grass Owl Tyto longimembris (which nests on the  ground). Elsewhere however there are owls which breed on cliffs or in old bird nests, and hardly any of them bother even to line the nest site. 

 

One of my favourite owls, the little Burrowing Owl Athene cunicularia, actually nests underground, mostly in burrows provided by rodents or badgers - or at least that's what most of the information says. On looking into it however I've realised that this mostly refers to North America and ignores the fact that probably more Burrowing Owls live in South America. (North Amercan bias, surely not?😀) On going through my South American field guides, I discover that in fact most South American Burrowing Owls dig their own, which makes sense as burrowing mammals such as ground squirrels and badgers are absent there; skunk burrows might be the best bet for South America owls, but they're not abundant.

Young Burrowing Owls at the mouth of their burrow, Sipan archaeological site,
north-western Peru.

Adult Burrowing Owl in the same arid area. One of my favourite Burrowing Owl
stories is their habit of collecting dried mammal dung and leaving it near the
burrow to attract edible dung beetles! Tool use, surely?

As you'll have already noticed, most owl plumage is subtly (and beautifully) mottled and camouflaged, presumably to reduce the degree of daytime harassment by mobbing birds. Chicks however begin life with very fine down feathers for the first week or so, which is replaced by a thicker down called a mesoptile through which full feathers eventually grow.

Crested Owls Lophostrix cristata, Tortuguero, east coast of Costa Rica. The chick is still
wearing its mesoptile down. This handsome owl can be 40cm tall (female owls are bigger
than the males) and is found in tropical rainforests in South and Central America. Quite a few
owls have these 'ears', which have nothing to do with hearing, and everything to do with display.
This distinctive owl is the only member of its genus.

Here is a slightly better portrait of a pair of this lovely owl at
Sacha Lodge in the Ecuadorian Amazon

I thinks that's about enough of facts and figures. For the rest I'm just going to introduce a small range of owls from four continents, and see what stories might arise. I'll start with a few Australian species, noting that my photo coverage of them is woefully inadequate.

Australian Boobook at a cave entrance, Undara Lava Tubes NP, north Queensland.
Owls lurk around the tubes waiting for bats to emerge at dusk. This subspecies,
which is found across the western two thirds of Australia, is paler and redder
than the south-eastern subspecies in the first photo of this post. I can't
explain which this one's eyes look dark rather than the expected yellow.

Here is the celebrity Powerful Owl Ninox strenua in the National Botanic Gardens in
Canberra in 2007 that I mentioned earlier. The largest of the boobook group of owls
(and the largest Australian owl) it stands an imposing 60cm high, and is found in tall
forests along the south-east coast and hinterlands of Australia. However it is reasonably
comfortable in suburbia too and in Sydney is known to prey on big fruit bats which form
colonies there, and regularly on stray cats. Otherwise its regularly takes prey as big as
Ring-tailed Possums and Greater Gliders, Pied Currawongs, cockatoos and even lyrebirds.
I first heard its deep slow resonant 'whoo whoo' decades ago bouncing off the cliffs at night
in Gariwerd (Grampians) National Park in western Victoria, and have never forgotten it.

Rufous Owl Ninox rufa, Atherton Tableland, north Queensland. Another big owl, not
much smaller than the Powerful Owl. This one is solely tropical, found scattered across
northern Australia and New Guinea. It has a similar diet to the Powerful. A well-known
pair roosts in the Darwin Botanic Gardens, but I've never had the pleasure.

Barking Owl Ninox connivens near Townsville, north Queensland. I really did hesitate
before posting this awful photo (a scan of an old slide) but in this case I decided that it
was (just) better than nothing. Bigger than a Boobook, this is a woodland owl
found across virtually the whole continent, especially in woodlands and open
forests. Its call really be mistaken for a barking dog, especially when a pair
is duetting.

Tawny-bellied Screech Owl Megascops watsonii, Amazonia Lodge,
near Cusco in southern Peru. Like the Tropical Screech Owl we met earlier
(and all others in the genus) this one has prominent ear tufts. Note how it's
just opened its left eye a slit, to keep track of me.

A familiar group of owls to anyone who's birded in South and Central America is the pygmy owl genus Glaucidium. They are mostly active in the daytime and guides regularly use their call to attract other small birds which mob them. However while the Americas are their stronghold, there are also members of the genus in North America, Asia, Europe and Africa. Here are four species of pygmy owl, three from the Americas but also an African one.

Austral Pygmy Owl G. nana, from the icy Patagonian southern cone of South America,
here alongside Perito Merino Glacier in Argentina. The largest female weighs barely
100g, but they have been recorded taking birds as large as 160g, though insects
form a large part of the diet.

Ferruginous Pygmy Owl G. brasilianum, Chapada dos Guimarães, south-western Brazil.
(Despite its scientific name, it is found widely in South and Central America).
They mostly feed on insects but like the other pygmy owls they are feisty hunters
who are undeterred by the size of a potential lunch.

The same bird as above, with the back of its head facing us. These 'false eyes' are
characteristic of several pygmy owls, presumably to make the mobs of small birds
think they're always under observation, though it doesn't seem to deter them.
Below is closer view of a pair of these pretty little owls, this time from the Pantanal
in south-western Brazil.

Pacific Pygmy Owl N. peruanum, Olmos area, central northern Peru.
It is found along the dry Pacific coast from Ecuador to the northern tip of Chile, and is
the only pygmy owl found in the lowlands west of the Andes. Until fairly recently this pygmy
owl was lumped in with the Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, but their calls are very different.

Pearl-spotted Owlet G. perlatum, Tangarire NP, Tanzania. This is one of four
African pygmy owls, except that they're called owlets there. It's a fairly familiar
little owl, found very widely across sub-Saharan Africa; even I've seen it in four
different countries. Like its neotropical relatives it is often active by day.

The scops owls form a big genus (some 60 species, the largest owl genus) of Old World owls, mostly Asian though a few are found in Africa and Europe as well. Until fairly recently the American screech owls were also included, though that is now agreed to have been erroneous, especially with regard to their calls. Like screech owls they are medium small owls with prominent ear tufts. They are mostly quite nocturnal.

African Scops Owl Otus senegalensis, Tarangire NP, Tanzania. Like many
owls, scops owls have lovely camouflage. This one mostly eats invertebrates.
(Sorry about the stick!)

Madagascan (or Rainforest) Scops Owl Otus rutilus, Ankarana NP, Madagascar.
It is widespread on the island, but not a lot seems to be known about it.

This lurking behaviour is typical of owls which are totally nocturnal (or nearly so). As I've mentioned before they are fiercely attacked by large numbers of daytime birds of many species, which respond to the calls of others to join in the mob.

Buffy Fish Owl Ketupa ketupu, Kinabatangan River, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.
Both scientific names are based on a Javanese name for this species. It is one
of half a dozen large owl species in Asia and Africa which are primarily fish-eaters.
This one may swoop from a perch to take fish from the surface,
or stand by the water, or even wade into it.

Until recently this was included in the genus Bubo, but it turns out that this was also a false grouping. Bubo still exists, as a genus of 10 species of horned owls (in the Americas) and eagle-owls (in Eurasia and Africa). These are seriously big owls, some of them considerably larger than our Powerful Owl! The Eurasian Eagle-Owl Bubo bubo can stand 75cm tall and weigh up to 4.5kg.

McKinder's Eagle-Owl, a subspecies of Cape Eagle-Owl Bubo capensis, central Kenya.
(Be kind, it took me some time to get an angle that showed even part of its face!) It was hidden
in a fig against a cliff face; the species is strongly associated with rocky areas across southern
Africa and in scattered populations in east Africa.

Our guide in this instance was an impressive young local man who's dedicated his life to studying owls - he'd been following this individual for seven years - and working with local communities, educating and advocating against the traditional persecution of owls, a serious problem all over the world.

Great Horned Owl Bubo virginianus, El Cajas NP, 4000 metres above sea level in
southern Ecuador. This huge owl is found throughout North America and much of
northern and eastern South America. We found this one by chance, sitting quietly
as one of our party poked about in a thicket. (Thanks Steve!)

Stygian Owl Asio stygius, Morro del Calzada Reserve, northern Peru.
A pair of these very imposing dark, brooding owls was roosting in the open
in this little forested montane reserve. They are scattered in central and South America
and the Caribbean, with a large range centred on southern Brazil. Despite being
large and widespread it seems that not a lot is known about them.
It is in the same genus as the Short-eared Owl that we met previously.

Spectacled Owl Pulsatrix perspicillata, Pantanal, south-western Brazil.
This large solitary owl is found in lowlands in Central America and throughout the
north-eastern half of South America. It has a wide range of habitats;
this one was in open woodland and grassland, and the only other one
that I've seen was in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador.
The genus is a small solely Neotropical one.

The final genus in this little owl discovery tour is one familiar to Europeans and North Americans - think of the Tawny Owl and Barred and Great Grey Owls respectively. However, as is often the case, my offerings are South American, and there's a twist...

Mottled Owl Strix virgata, in a hotel garden in San José, Costa Rica.
This pair were tucked away in a massive stand of bamboos that must have
been over ten metres high. Another one that is found widely in Central and
northern South America, often around humans. It's mostly a perch-and-pounce hunter.

Black and White Owl Strix nigrolineata, Caño Negro, northern Costa Rica.
Another medium-sized owl from Central America and the far north-west of
South America. I find this one particularly striking.

And that brings us to a bird that belongs to a short list of birds that I most treasure having seen.

This owl was at San Isidro lodge on the eastern side of the northern Ecuadorian Andes,
at 2000 metres above sea level, and is only known from the vicinity of San Isidro.
It looks very like the Black and White Owl, and also like the closely related
Black-banded Owl (Strix huhula - how I love that name!) from the lowland rainforests
to the east. However the Black and White is only known from the western slopes of the Andes, and
the Black-banded is rarely found higher than 500 metres, and never above 1500.

In plumage and, reportedly, in voice, it seems midway between both those species. Indeed the general approach to it is to tentatively regard it as an isolated sub-species of Black-banded, though it seems to me there is little basis for that. It is widely known in birding circles as the 'mystery owl'. Obviously we need DNA (without the traditional method of obtaining it, of course!). Perhaps feathers from under a roost or eggs that have hatched would do? Of course that's easier said than done, though I'm surprised that no-one has succeeded yet - there are some brilliant bird guides in that part of the world. My bet would be on it being a new species, but it seems we must be patient for a while yet! Meanwhile I love the story and am very fortunate to have seen the bird.

Well it's been a long post, and one that I've been meaning to do for some years. If you've read this far, my thanks for doing so, and I hope it means that you're as fascinated by owls as I am. I hope too that I've been able to add something small to your knowledge and enjoyment of them.

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 19 SEPTEMBER

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