Sooty and Sweep

Sooty Owls are beautiful, enigmatic Tytos that I have “craved” seeing since moving back to Australia. I’ve had several chances and attempts to see them over the years, but a combination of lack of skill, bad luck, mostly owling alone, and (mention this quietly) an uneasiness and lack of enjoyment at spending long periods alone in the dark forest, have all conspired against me. Until now.

But first, to provide some context, the failures.

A pair had nested out the back of the ANU Coastal campus near Kioloa when I was invited to give a talk at a workshop there back in Jan 2013. The local gen was that they’d not been seen for a month before I arrived, and with lots of work to do even outside the main workshop hours (I was writing my Laureate Fellowship application!) and an inadequate torch I decided not to head up into the forest at night. I regretted this later, but that is often the way with me and owling — when it’s a choice between a relaxing drink, comfortable bed, or fruitless hours standing around in the dark, being eaten by mossies, you can guess which way I usually sway.

A few months later in April 2013 we were on a family holiday to the Gold Coast and hinterland, and spent a few nights at Green Mtn campsite (next to O’Reilly’s) in Lamington National Park. I spent some quality time wandering the trails unsuccessfully looking for Marbled Frogmouth and Sooty Owl. Embarrassingly I did actually hear one very vocal and responsive Sooty close to O’Reilly’s, but couldn’t get a glimpse. Only later did I find out that they keep a rehabilitated bird there as part of their raptor display.

Still, with regular work commitments in Brisbane I figured it was only matter of time before I could get out to places like Mt Glorious and try there. My first shot was in winter 2015 when I followed up an ebird report from Alex Rd on Mt Glorious the evening before a research meeting. An hour there, and then stops at a few places (Lawton Rd, Brons Rd and Maiala) yielded nothing but frustration and tiredness.

Next time, Oct 2016, I sought local help and was joined by Richard Noske. Richard took me to a few places along the road, many of which I recognised as places I’d checked unsuccessfully the year before. Maybe I wasn’t patient enough previously or maybe it was just wrong time of year. Richard and I tried a few spots over a few hours, and ended up spending the best part of an hour with a vocal bird. Unfortunately it was down a steep slope in someone’s garden so we couldn’t move our own position, and we could not persuade it to come any closer to us. The following night I tried again, alone. On the drive up I found this Tawny Frogmouth, but in the same spot as we’d heard the Sooty the previous night, after another couple of hours I had one single, distant response and otherwise drew a blank.

Although I make regular work trips to Brisbane, most of these are either day-trips, starting in Adelaide around 4.30am to get the 6am flight, or sessions where I have evening commitments as well. My latest trip — a two day intensive workshop in Feb 2018 — was due to be held at Clear Mountain Lodge. I checked Google Maps and realised that this spot is only about 30mins drive from Mt Glorious, and if I flew in the evening before the workshop I would buy two significant advantages: 1. I would be fresh for the work the next day, instead of starting work after 5 hours of prep and travel; and crucially 2. I could have another crack for Sooty Owls.

My flight arrived at 6.30 and by 7.30 I was stationed on Browns Rd, an unsealed track off the main Mt Glorious Rd, deep in D’Aguillar National Park. Gen from Tom Tarrant, Brisbane and world birder who I “know” from Facebook, had led me to a spot along here where they have been seen fairly recently.

Though I’d brought bins and camera, I was alarmed to realise as soon as I got out of the car that my main torch was dead! Fortunately I have a backup, a small, penlight cree torch that takes a single AA battery and is surprisingly bright. This would have to do.

For the first 30mins it was all rather quiet, other than a pair of Boobooks that called to each other distantly.  Then I heard the fabulous falling bomb call of a Sooty. Great, I am in the right place! Then I heard it again closer. But then it went quiet.

I went for a wander up the road, again fruitlessly, but as I returned to the car a blood-curdling screech split the still night air and sent shivers down my spine. I didn’t immediately recognise this as a Sooty Owl, since I had only previously heard the falling bomb and the insect-like territorial trill. It was close. I swung my torch around with increasing frustration hoping to pick up some eye-shine or a bird-shaped shadow with the naked eye. It had to be there somewhere, but my under-powered torch was not helping to get any eye-shine! Eventually I lined up the torch with bins and scanned that way. Now I was able to pick up a dark shape high in the canopy, not identifiable as anything other than “not part of tree”. It was almost entirely obscured by a thick branch, and in my weak torchlight, balancing its narrow field of view with my bins, the view was diabolically bad. Fortunately it stayed put and I could gradually pull together enough of the bird for a tick! The way it was behaving — constant screeching and looking around but not moving much — made me suspect this was a young bird calling for its parents to feed it.

It then moved a short way along the same branch where my view was slightly better and I managed, by balancing the torch and camera to get the world’s worst photo of a Sooty Owl.

 

After a while I grew frustrated with my equipment and gave up, thinking I will never manage a decent photo in the conditions so why bother trying. I went for anther walk then picked it up in torch-light flying across the road. By wandering slightly down a forest trail I was able to relocate it in a position slightly better for viewing, and by wedging my torch into the leaf-litter, and switching to manual focus on the lens, I was able to get some passable record shots — even if they are pale imitations of some of my FB friends’ pictures (you know who I mean Chris Steeles…).

Pumped, and now satisfied that I done the best I could in terms of views and photographs, I left the bird in peace and was at the hotel by 10.15.

The next morning I was up early and enjoying a stunning view from my hotel room as the sun rose over the forest.

A small party of White-throated Honeyeaters was feeding in the gums outside my room. Also noted here, a pair of Pied Currawong, a White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike and a few Tree Martins. From the corner of my eye, I noted another bird zip past the window that gave the impression of bulkier, and sleeker than the Martins: could this be a swift or even better a needletail? I watched from the balcony and a couple of minutes later another one zoomed past: White-throated Needletail! My first in Australia and easily one of the best birds on the planet.

It disappeared over the roof so I left the room and walked over the the swimming pool and tennis court area. Here there were around 20 needletails, swooping around, swept-back wings scything through the air. This is the fastest creature in self-powered flight, capable of speeds over 100mph, probably the the closest thing to aerodynamic perfection in the natural world. It was impossible to get photos of them as they swept past me at speed. I could hear the sound of the air being split by their wings during their close approaches, barely a few meters away from me. For a much better, more atmospheric and more exciting description, have a look at Tom Bedford’s blog, the tale of when we both saw White-throated Needletails for the first time.

It was now 7am and I need to grab some breakfast before an early start to the workshop. Tame Kookaburra, Currawong, Magpie and Pied Butcherbird joined me on the restaurant balcony. Predictably, as soon as my attention was momentarily distracted, the Kookaburra swooped on my breakfast, disappearing with a sausage it had clearly had its eye on the whole time.

Despite this being an intensive work event, much of which was spent in a small room with a dozen other robotics geeks, I even managed one more Australian tick while here: as I walked by bags to the rental car, I spied a bright blue bird sitting on the pool fence: Forest Kingfisher.