Owl-tastic

On the local Northern Territory e-mail group there have been several reports of Little Curlew arriving. This wader breeds in eastern Russia / Siberia and over winters in Australia and was one of my target birds. I saw one very distantly through horrible heat haze at Knuckey Lagoon on Monday and was keen to get better views and if possible a few photos;  they do arrive in good numbers and can be seen on most open grass areas in Darwin but given we are moving in a few weeks I did not want to miss seeing them. I was very interested in an email that said there were 30 at Holmes Jungle over the weekend so a short walk this morning was called for - Tish was on a half shift and the children were all in school (although collect Cameron at 1115 today).
The swamp area where the Little Curlew were reported was bone dry but there were good numbers of Brolga with some flying in..

 I ended up with a final count of over 450 birds including several pairs that were displaying.
As I still had not seen any Little Curlew I decided to try and get a bit closer to where the cranes were feeding to see if the waders were with them. To try and give me chance to get a decent photo of a pair dancing I decided to stalk through the taller grass so that I could get closer without disturbing them.
As it turned out this was a good choice! As I was walking through an area of chest high grass I flushed a group of three owls and then a fourth single. They all came off the ground no more than 5m ahead of me so I was able to get good views of them as they scattered, and I was able to follow a couple of them and watch as they dropped back into the grass about 100m ahead. They were clearly owls belonging to the Tyto genus - that is Barn Owl types - but did not feel like Pacific Barn Owls. I got the camera out and continued towards where I saw them go down and in the space of the next twenty minutes flushed at least three of the owls getting some semi decent pictures in the process.
I decided to call it a day at this stage as my suspicions as to their identity needed to be confirmed (and it was so hot that I did not have a dry stitch of clothing on me!).
Being able to look at the pictures on the laptop at home confirmed my thoughts that these were Eastern Grass Owls - a rare bird in the Territory and one that is frequently claimed but often misidentified.
I sent my best pictures off to one of the most experienced local birders, who is writing the definitive guide to birds of the Top End for his opinion. He confirmed my ID as well as adding that in 27 years of birding the Top End he never managed to find one himself!
The images will be used in his forth coming book!

The last influx of these owls to Darwin was in the early 1970s.
We may have to go and have a look one evening!