Ben Cruachan – natural history

One of my big worries with the recent fires has been the fate of the pair of Powerful Owls in “Owl Creek”. I heard that it had been involved in a back burn, but until today I hadn’t been in to have a look. Peter, Jim, and I drove up after lunch, and started the walk upstream towards the owls’ territory, seeing plenty of signs of the fires, but not the devastation that we feared. The ridge to the west had borne the brunt of the burn, but apart from small areas the creek was looking good. A few big trees had come down, and the recent deluge had scoured the bed and brought down a lot of silt, but we were soon seeing a nice lot of birds.
A favourite roost for the owls is a patch of tall Rock Waxflower in the gorge, and when we reached it I climbed up and immediately flushed one of the pair. After picking up a pellet we followed on up the creek, and Jim soon spotted it forty metres up the slope perched in a tall Burgan shrub. I scrambled up the slope towards it taking photos as I went, the bird was partly hidden by branches and foliage, and it was only the last three that were keepers. Here’s one, click for a larger version.

When I started to climb a rock ledge to get closer it flew again and went further upstream, we followed and the next time it flushed it was with its mate. On our return we picked up several pellets under another roost, they contained mammal bones, and there were plenty of feathers lying around, so they obviously still have a good food supply. It’s fortunate that there were only a few casualties in the old hollow-bearing trees that are the homes of the gliders and possums that make up a vital part of the owls’ diet. Life goes on.