A Frogmouth owl mother and her chick have taken up residence on the tree outside my studio window. As I started taking these photographs, the adult started bobbing and stretching first one wing then the other then, to our amazement, the chick mimicked the adult's movements.
Could this be the first lesson in learning to fly?
As I write I can see the adult owl still sitting within the crook of the tree. It is pouring with rain.
We have a number of owls in our area: the Boobook, Frogmouth, Powerful, Barking and even a Sooty Owl which perched outside the dining room window one November night. Generally we recognize each by their call: the Boobook with its two syllables which make up its name, the Frogmouth's meditative 'oom' , the Sooty Owl's descending whistle. Most often the call of the Barking Owl is also linked to its name and is something between a cough and a dog's bark, then at others ti can be can be altogether different.
One night I awoke to such a scream of such terror, I was convinced murder was taking place beneath my window.
