1 June 2006
People passing through the Boola Boola State Forest in Gippsland this month could be forgiven for thinking it is full of screaming women and barking dogs.
In fact, the unusual noises have been owl calls, played from a CD through a megaphone and into the forest night by PhD researcher Narelle Weston, who has been monitoring bird populations in logged areas.
Throughout May, Ms Weston and a band of volunteers have been braving cold nights, playing the calls and listening for a response from nearby owls. And the results have been surprising.
Four of Victoria's six owl species are threatened. Two of these - the Powerful Owl and the Sooty Owl - have been detected many times in Ms Weston's study area. She has 75 study sites over the 20,000 hectare forest, 17 of which are used specifically for owl surveys. The sites have been logged to varying degrees over the 60 years up to 2002-3.
Ms Weston said while actual bird distribution was still to be determined, her initial findings indicated that large and threatened birds were surviving in logged areas, probably because established trees with hollows and remnant patches of forest were left standing.
"It's good news that they can still live within a highly modified area," she said. "Originally we thought that we wouldn't hear many owls, but the Powerful Owls in particular, have surprised us."
Ms Weston said while the Powerful Owl had a traditional mellow hoot, the calls of other owls were "quite wacky'. The threatened Sooty Owl's call sounded like a woman's high-pitched scream and the Barking Owl, as its name suggests, sounds like a dog to the untrained ear, she said.
Ms Weston's research, on populations of daytime bird species as well as owls, is in its first year and she will undertake another round of comparative surveys next year.
Her PhD is being completed at Monash University's School of Applied Sciences and Engineering at the Gippsland Campus within the Faculty of Science. She has a scholarship through the Monash Institute for Regional Studies and has recently been approved a grant from the Holsworth Wildlife Research Fund.
Ms Weston is also supported by the Department of Sustainability and Environment, which has provided logistical support including a car and spotlights and whose staff have provided the owl call recordings and helped with the surveys.
For more information contact Melissa Marino + 61 3 9905 2085 or 0437 121 978.
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