Birds of the Night

A Tawny Frogmouth concealed in a manna gum

On May 19 three Ballarat Field Nats attended a talk hosted by Wombat Forestcare, at Trentham. This was one of a series of talks under the banner of You, Me and Biodiversity. These talks are gaining in popularity so it was nearly standing room only. The next talk is on frogs, check out their website http://www.wombatforestcare.org.au/

This talk was presented by Marion Weaving, a PhD candidate from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at Deakin University, and focused on her research mainly into Tawny Frogmouths. She also discussed the Southern Boobook Owl and the Australian Owlet-Nightjar.

As more and more people live in the urban fringe of cities Marion was interested during her studies to look at 3 nocturnal species that live in the gradient between the forest and suburban fringe, and to determine what landscape and site factors affect their distribution.

Birds are often used in surveys due to their relative abundance and because they are vocal. Many researchers study birds during daylight hours but Marion chose to study birds at the night. She put in an amazing amount of time into this, going out 6 nights a week between dusk and 2am for many months.