I’ll never forget the first time I heard the call of the Powerful Owl. A heavy rain storm had just passed over and the sorrowful “whoo-hooo” double hoot pulsed through the dripping forest in Eltham’s Reynolds Reserve. Save for the distant hum of traffic, the forest was silent, making the owl call feel surreal and impossible. It was like I was hearing something created by a film sound designer. It stopped me dead in my tracks and then propelled me on a 12 month quest to find this creature that lorded so regally over it’s darkened forest kingdom.
That night we tried to follow the call along twisting tracks that slithered through the darkness, our head torches cast upward in hope. In was in vain, as the calls grew more distant until we couldn’t hear them at all. It was enough for me to go back several times in the black of night, again hearing the call and again failing to see the birds. But I wasn’t going to give up easily.
The Powerful Owl is a pure apex predator, a stealth hunter, primarily picking off ring-tailed possums and other tree dwelling mammals. Viscerally beautiful to look at, they quickly became my number 1 species to locate and video for Last Volcanos stock video library.
The Powerful Owl (Australia’s largest owl) casts a muscular shadow. Their giant yellow eyes pin you down with a strangely ethereal, otherworldly gaze. Like you’re seeing something that shouldn’t exist, something primeval.
So began my quest to capture that gaze first hand. I returned to the forests around Eltham and Warrandyte during the day in the hope of finding a roosting tree. I’d scour birding website ebird for known haunts of local owls, I’d go on tours and sound out experts who may be able to point me in the right direction.
Many times I failed, many times I felt drained and deflated. Driven a little crazy. I heard of other sightings, saw pictures on the very same paths I’d walked. I began to feel like there was something working against me. Was it that I was trying too hard? Wanting it too much? I began to question everything in fact, why was I doing any of this at all? Was it all a waste of time?
In March of this year, I decided to try somewhere I hadn’t been since I was in Kindergarten - a little wildlife sanctuary outside Warrnambool. After another fruitless search, my neck was sore and my frustrations bubbling to the surface - I began another deflated trek back to my car. 50 metres from the carpark I rounded a corner and saw it sitting with it’s back to me on a low branch. A chunky blob in the middle distance that could only be one thing. Nothing says bird nerd like feeling a rush of adrenaline akin to the time I went sky diving in my 20’s, when you think you’ve seen an owl. I was so excited I almost forgot hit record on my camera when I lined up a shot of it with shaking hands. Like when I heard the call, seeing the owl felt impossible. Like seeing a Wookiee or the famed Australian panther. For me, this creature was fantasy until that moment.
To say the owl was as happy to see me as I was to see it - would be a presumptive lie. Its incredible eyes blazed wide and wild all over me as I moved around to get the best view of it. With no one else around and the song of the golden whistlers rebounding off every tree, this was a moment I’ll never forget. After 10 minutes with the owl, I decided to move off and skip joyfully back to the car. 12 months after the quest began, it was over. Though, as satisfying and incredible as it was seeing the Powerful Owl, my mind immediately went to the next species, the next quest. The Southern Boobook Owl.