As I was walking in the bush this morning, I heard a lot of noise coming from an open space just off the track. Currawongs chiming, ravens yowling, miners bleating. I went to investigate, and found a Powerful Owl under attack.

Here’s the Powerful Owl, looking decidedly jaded after facing off the most recent jabs from a couple of Australian Ravens:

The Australian Miners and Currawongs were making a lot of noise, and even a couple of kookaburras swooped in to join the fight. But the principal attackers were the Australian Ravens.

At first, the Powerful Owl was able to fend off the attack:

But the ravens were pretty vicious. The owl was high in the tree at this point, and there was nothing I could do to scare off the attackers.

I phoned the Manly Dam bush ranger centre and reported the problem. A ranger promised to come immediately. In the meantime, the owl was suffering and it was distressing not to be able to help:

At last, the owl ceded ground and flew to a lower spot in the tree:

At the same time, the attacks became more vicious, with the ravens grabbing both wings and pulling at the same time, stretching out the owl’s wings.

The owl was at this point only about 2.5 metres above the ground. A jogger came rushing in to help, and together she and I were able to scare off the ravens and other attackers.

The bush ranger arrived soon afterwards. After a bit of discussion, we decided the best thing was to phone WIRES for advice. WIRES is the Australian Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service.

In the meantime, we had to keep chasing away the ravens. They were extremely persistent, returning every few minutes to see if the coast was clear for another attack. The owl looked on, more relaxed than when under attack, but still alert:

Common name: Powerful Owl

Scientific name: Ninox strenua

Approximate length: 65 cm

Date spotted: 7 October 2019 (spring)

Location: Manly Dam National Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’55.8″S 151°15’12.1″E

The advice from WIRES was to leave the owl where it was (don’t try to scare it into flying away) and to keep chasing away the ravens. Evidently Powerful Owls tend to stay in one place during the day, even when under attack. Besides which, the jogger had seen the owl flying from one tree to another earlier that morning, with the ravens dive-bombing it in flight. So flying off was probably not a good option anyway.

So we kept chasing away the ravens. After a couple of hours, two families arrived and settled in for a day of boating and picnicking. We handed over the job of raven-scaring to them, and the bush ranger said she would drop by every couple of hours to check up on the owl.

Not a restful day for this nocturnal bird. But at least this is one case where it was a good thing for the bird that people were around. I do hope the Powerful Owl had a more peaceful time for the rest of the day.