Powerful Owl at Coffs Harbour Botanical Gardens

On June 17 Val and I visited Coffs Harbour to see our grandson who was turning 6.  Koby is so keen on wildlife and he adores his granddad.  We share some wonderful times together and he is very skilful in spotting hard to see birds.  On a recent bird camp he drew my attention to a bird high up in a dead tree on top of a hill.  When we stopped and viewed the bird through binoculars and a spotting scope it was found to be a Pallid Cuckoo, the first for the camp.  He was also the first to spot a group of Ground Cuckoo-shrikes on the same camp.

I had heard that there had been a recent sighting of a Powerful Owl at the Coffs Harbour Botanical gardens so Val and I investigated the area while we waited for school to finish.  Val found a broken off feather of an Owl on the ground but it took me some time to locate the bird perched high in the upper foliage of a Turpentine Syncarpia glomulifera tree.  I was very satisfied as this was the first Powerful Owl that I had seen (and photographed) during daylight hours.  I have observed a few at night while spotlighting and have heard the call numerous times during fauna survey work but this was a treat.  A pair of Powerful Owls had nested in or near to the Botanical Gardens last year and I visited the site in an attempt to see and photograph the adult pair and their two young then but I missed out by a few days.  They had moved on.  Apparently Coffs Council's ecologist is attempting to locate the nesting tree this year.

Adult Powerful Owl perched high in Turpentine

Adult Powerful Owl

Not so hard to find was an adult Koala curled up in a fork of a Swamp Mahogany Eucalyptus robusta some 100 metres or so from the Owl perch.  It began to feed towards late afternoon, munching of the eucalypt leaves.  Both the Owl and the Koala were quite high up in trees and were partly obscured by foliage making photography difficult.  I did mange a few shots of both but would like better, closer, shots of them at some time in the future.

Adult Koala in Swamp Mahogany

Easier to photograph was an adult Australian Brush-turkey that was scratching around in a mound of mulch.   A second bird arrived and there was the usual bickering that is common with this species.

Adult Australian Brush-turkey on mound of mulch

After school finished we showed the three grandkids the Owl and Koala and also showed them to some overseas visitors from Poland and Asia.  They were all very impressed.   A pair of Rainbow Lorikeets was inspecting potential nest hollows in tall Blackbutt Eucalyptus pilularis trees.  These birds are so common as to be virtually ignored by serious birdwatchers but when you stop and observe them they are indeed beautiful creatures.

Adult pair of Rainbow Lorikeets at nest hollow