Nature Notes | Who-who are our local feathered residents?

This is the boobook owl, or southern boobook.

It occurs through much of the Ballarat region, where it can be found in habitats as diverse as farmland and forest.

Sometimes it is found in suburban Ballarat.

It needs trees large enough to have nest hollows, and dense enough to provide sheltered roosting sites.

Its prey includes insects, mice and small birds.

The barn owl is scarcer.

Its numbers are usually related to the local mouse population, with more owls when there are more mice.

It is an open-country bird, seldom found in forests.

Occasionally it turns up in Ballarat. In some years it is not seen at all.

Unlike the boobook owl, the barn owl both nests and roosts in tree holes, although sometimes one might be seen during the day in a building or a tree.

The powerful owl is found mostly in forested country.

Recent reports have come from Haddon and Mt Helen.

Sometimes it is found in drier areas, such as Newstead, and sometimes in pine plantations.

It is thought to mate for life, and it stays in a large territory year-round.

It catches most of its prey from tree branches - cockatoos, possums, gliders, choughs and so on.

It nests in large tree holes, and roosts in dense trees.

The barking owl is a rarity, living in drier forests and woodlands, often where red gums grow.

It is sedentary and territorial, but it is not known anywhere in the Ballarat district now.

A pair at Newstead a couple of years ago created a lot of interest for a week or more.

Our fifth owl is also a rarity - in fact so rare that it has never been confirmed here.

This is the masked owl, and it is listed here due to a report of a large owl with a wingspan the size of a broadsheet newspaper that was seen at Daylesford many years ago.

This was probably a female masked owl, a species which is rare and little-known anywhere in Victoria.

Rock-ferns put out new growth every autumn, then flourish until summer dryness causes them to die down until the following autumn, when they will re-sprout again.

They are hardy small ferns, often growing in open exposed sites, quite unlike the damp and shaded spots where most fern species grow.

Two of the local species are green rock-fern and narrow rock-fern, distinguished mainly by the shape of their fronds.