Do Owls eat possums?

[Phil Spencer]

Just found a dead possum on the front lawn, it was missing it's head I have heard that owls go after possums and crush their skull, As I have a tawny Frog Mouth living in the park next door I was wondering if he could be the culprit?

Any one know about the habits of this bird?

[Avery]

I doubt that a tawny frogmouth would take a possum. They are generally into much smaller things - insects, frogs and small mammals (mice etc.) A larger owl, powerful owl or barn owl etc, could well take a possum, but I doubt that it would leave it behind.

If I were a betting man, I would go for a Felis Catus as the culprit.

[chrisb691]

It was a cat.

[underfoot]

might have been a Newzealander

[Phil Spencer]

might have been a Newzealander

Have a couple from NZ living across the road, might go and ask them

[ColW]

Definitely a cat, I've never known an owl to take just a head, a tawny frogmouth wouldn't take on a possum but a powerful owl would, and there would be strips of flesh missing, it's not a pretty sight.

col.

[artme]

Don't think an owl would do that, most likely a cat.

By the way Tawny Frogmouths are not owls. They are Nightjars.

[Charleville]

As this video shows, you might be surprised by the number of cats that visit your place at night...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIbkLjjlMV8&feature=player_embedded#at


So it could be a cat doing the damage.


However, I did hear an owl expert on a Radio National program last year say that owls do take possums. I recall the interview well because it prompted me to think at the time that it must be a bloody big owl, given the size of some of the possums that visit my home at night from time to time.


I know little of owls but the bloke being interviewed was a national expert who had recorded a lot of owl sounds and played some of them on the program.


I cannot remember the details of the program but it might have been on the "Bush Telegraph" program.

.

[tea lady]

Could have been a powerful owl. They are quite big. Not usually this cuddly I suspect, but at least you can tell the size! But it was probaqbly still a cat, cos a reckon a sane animal wouldn't eat the head.:rolleyes:
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQUJSP0Mgs2uz7kd7zIn_F-Iojq0sP7719HkbZak5Qhn5FtHf8wrwhttp://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/files/2010/12/PowerfulOwl-w_Ringtail-Duncan.jpg
Bird of the week: The killer Owls of Durham County | The Northern Myth (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2010/12/13/bird-of-the-week-the-killer-owls-of-durham-county/)

[tea lady]

Powerful Owls. - Nature of Gippsland Photo Gallery (http://www.natureofgippsland.org/coppermine/thumbnails.php?album=7)

[lightwood]

Just found a dead possum on the front lawn, it was missing it's head I have heard that owls go after possums and crush their skull, As I have a tawny Frog Mouth living in the park next door I was wondering if he could be the culprit?

Any one know about the habits of this bird?
Phil,
we had a similar thing happen out the front of a neighbour's house in our court. We are adjacent some bush land in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
The neighbour found it a few days before a court BBQ last year, and only a few weeks after I saw a TV show describing the Powerful Owl.
All thought it was a cat, including the Vet from a few doors around...however, I went looking for the telltale small chevron feathers from the owl's breast. (seen the the pictures above.....as recommended on the TV show) Sure enough there was one on the ground under the tree where the possum bits were found.

Never seen or heard them in the 20+ years we have lived here, but the feather was there.

Regards,
Peter

[pampelmuse]

I agree it could be a powerful owl. The fact that it was dropped on a lawn suggests it may have been morer likely a cat. Powerful owls are well known to sit all day with a half a possum or glider in their talons then eat the rest later. They also clip tails off young brushtail possums they have caught and drop them. Adult brushtails are too large for them though they will eat young ones. There was one visiting the National Botanic Gardens in Canberra a couple of years ago and over a month or so it cleaned out most of the gliders and possums that were living there. It was a most impressive bird.
Tawny frogmouths eat smaller prey and swallow things whole as they do not have a tearing hook on their beaks or talons to grasp prey with.

[michael_m]

It could be a powerful owl - they're found all along the Yarra River in Melbourne and I've seen them several times with a ringtail in their claws. Boobooks have been known to take ringtail possums too.

But most likely it was a cat or a fox. There's more foxes in urban than rural areas, and foxes love eating possums.

[moikel]

A breeding pair of P Owls can eat 200 possums a year:oo: Depending on their habitat the also eat gliders, flying foxs, other birds including crows & even white cockatoos:oo: They are Ninox or Hawk owls hunting mostly dawn/dusk by sight as opposed to Tinox hunting by hearing in the dark.They are still here in Sydney,Northern Beachs,Lane Cove park Sutherland shire,good thing:2tsup: I saw one only 9 ks from CBD at dusk last year a big male.They range over large areas male has a wingspan of 140cm so pretty big,no shortage of possums. Breeding season now so males will have families to feed.First thing they do is break possums neck figure head might come off at same time.They mostly hunt in the tree canopy not at ground level. I was in NZ at Easter they are still mad at us about the possum thing:U

[underfoot]

I was in NZ at Easter they are still mad at us about the possum thing:U
Remind them that it was the Kiwi's that brought them from Oz in the1800's to start a fur trade

[moikel]

Kiwis rewriting history a bit seem to think fur trade was an Australian idea,I figure if its 1800s blame the Poms :Uthey are already in the black books for introducing those truly horrible stoats:~ to NZ. What an evil little creature they are:~

[Bushmiller]

Powerful Owls eat possums.

From what I've seen, they eat half the animal and leave the remainder hanging in a tree for later. They seem to eat the head and front legs first.

Whether the owl was the culprit in Phil Spencer's original post, I couldn't say.

Regards
Paul

[bsrlee]

According to one local 'expert', Powerful Owls tend to have favourite eating trees, and leave possum skulls underneath without any other body parts.

[moikel]

Ive read that favourite tree thing somewhere before this,one of the studies of populations used it to work out how many pairs of owls were per square whatever maybe:? If a pair can eat 200 possums a year then thats a fair pile of skulls:U