The House(s) of Fran_mart

Each year eBird declares a Saturday as the Worldwide Big Day in which their members try to record as many species as possible.  I suspect the date is selected to be as close as possible to peak migration season in the USA, from where most eBird reports emanate.  However the most species on the day typically come from a country in South America (which isn't surprising as those countries typically have the greatest diversity). In the past two years I have managed to get a couple of "world's biggest flocks".  In one year it was 150 Australian Magpies and the other a similar number of Little Ravens.  So I will be heading for the Plain later in the day. By 6am AET there were 50 species reported with NZ leading the way with 21 species (again not surprising as it has been daylight there for about 2 hours, while still early evening of Friday in the Eastern US).  India, which can only just have got into the 5th, has 14 species, of which 7 are Owls or Nightjars....

After the leader survived Horse Park Drive (tailback from the Federal Highway to Anthony Rolfe Avenue) and another jam caused by road works on Gundaroo Rd he made it to the appointed spot.  25 Members gathered on the shores of Yerrabi Pond with the intention of heading to the Western end.  Departure was slightly delayed by the appearance of 5 Superb Parrots but we began our shore patrol about 8:45.  Had we waited a little longer I might have got a better photo. Counting of Eurasian Coots began as soon as we could see water! Cutting to the chase, by the time we turned for home the total was up to 470.  Bill Graham advised that at peak he had assessed 800 Coots here, but he agreed there were many less today.  A Little Pied Cormorant posed nicely. On the shore we spotted a Red-rumped Parrot being fed by an adult female which counted as Feeding Young (which presumably maps to the COG DY category). My photo skills were improving, but still not as good as San...

Some years ago Birds Australia published research that appeared to show that Boobooks were threatened in Australia.  Knowing, from McComas Taylor's work on the Atlas of ACT birds that it is crucial to conduct surveys at night to count this species I enquired if the drop between the 1st and 2nd Atlasses could be due to there being less Owling (nocturnal activity by birders) rather than a decrease in owls.  To my total expectation I never got an answer to my question. There is now a fair body of information around from eBird that is publicly available so I thought I would have a look at this to see what it could say about the less uncommon owls in the Canberra area.  It turned out to be a very interesting exercise in many ways.  There are quite a few graphs in what follows, but hopefully the text will be enough to keep the interest going for the cartophobic. The three owls I am examining are Southern Boobook (hereafter Boobook), Powerful Owl (Powl) and Eastern Barn...