Magnificent Powerful Owl moment

Look into my eyes!

What a magnificent moment! I was deep in the bush working on a bird survey at a nature sanctuary in the Yarra Ranges. Like all of us strange birders I look up if I notice splashes on whitewash on the ground… and there, right above me, so close, was a Powerful Owl. My heart was racing with the wonder of it.

What made it even more magnificent is that I’d just been watching two others stare down at me with apex predator curiosity. This Powerful Owl is a male, he is larger than the female who was perched just above him. It’s unusual to see three of these owls so close together unless fledglings are among them.

Male Powerful Owls are 60-65cm, with a wingspan up to 1.4m and close up they seem even larger.

This map shows the range of a Powerful Owl using land in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges that is under threat of expansion by Boral’s Montrose quarry. It is particularly devastating as the adjacent land lost 34 hectares in the awful bushfire earlier this year. If Boral gets its way a further 30 hectares will be lost. Boral requested approval to expand during the 1990s and early 2000s. They went through a $13.4 million full Environmental Effects Statement process, and they lost. Crystalline silica inhalable dust from the quarry causes deadly silicosis, with one case making headlines a couple of years ago. There are many reasons why this quarry should close as have other quarries as residences, schools, kinders, aged cared facilities etc moved closer (like Box Hill, Lilydale and Ferntree Gully). If you’d like to learn more and to help our campaign please visit the STOP Montrose Quarry Expansion page on facebook, or search for either of the two petitions. This quarry was supposed to have closed years ago and we need all the help we can to get this disingenuous expansion proposal rejected.

Happy birding, and don’t forget to look up if you see splashes of whitewash on the track, Kim

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