Powerful Owl Chicks

After a couple of months of rehabilitation at Taronga’s Wildlife Hospital the Powerful Owls had put on enough weight and were confident in flying, so it was time for them to return to suburbia.

The owls were taken to Bayview golf course where they were found, local residents knew that a tree with a large hollow in it was their nest and had sighted the parents the night before. Darkness fell and Taronga’s wildlife nurses bid farewell to two very special patients.

Since being released, both siblings have been sighted flying around the nest sight and are doing well, they are still under the kind watchful eyes of the local residents.

Thousands of injured wildlife is treated at Taronga’s Wildlife Hospital each year. The aim is to get them back to full health and release them back into the wild. Taronga regularly treats a number of young bird species. Just as humans have to learn the art of walking, birds take time to master the skill of flying. Often young birds will come off second best when testing their wings and are in need of some expert attention for the Zoo’s wildlife experts.

The Powerful Owl is the largest owl in Australasia and they grow really quickly. They are full sized at 12 weeks old and, are designed for hunting. They have large powerful talons that allow them to grab their prey such as possums, rat’s, bird’s and even bat’s. They have huge eye’s to spot their prey, they’re that big they can’t move them so, to make up for it they have twice as many vertebras in their neck then humans letting them turn there heads ¾ of the way around and completely upside down.

Powerful Owls nest in large tree hollows (at least 0.5 m deep), in large eucalypts that are at least 150 years old, so the cutting down of eucalypt forests have left this species threatened.