The weekend was a fairly good one for night birds. The Owlet Nightjar is much smaller than I had imagined, about the size of an adult fist when sitting on the road, or the size of a small rock, or some cow dung as I had assumed some of the lumps on the road were. I was alerted to the fact that maybe what I had seen was in fact an animal of some sort when one of the rocks "jumped" just before I past. I turned the car around and saw this beautiful little Owlet Nightjar:
On the same road (Buntine Highway) I also saw a Pacific Barn Owl. I have seen these before and on bitumen roads they sit and look straight at you, flying off at the last minute, but I had seen one just prior so was going quite slow in case there was another. Lucky for me, this one stayed long enough for some photos:
And the final night bird was seen in the early morning, during daylight, not a common sight for me - a Southern Boobook near Jasper Gorge in the Gregory National Park in the NT:
On the same road (Buntine Highway) I also saw a Pacific Barn Owl. I have seen these before and on bitumen roads they sit and look straight at you, flying off at the last minute, but I had seen one just prior so was going quite slow in case there was another. Lucky for me, this one stayed long enough for some photos:
Happy Birding!
well done Richard, looks like a successful night out
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff Rich!
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