A life-saving encounter with a Powerful Owl

You could say that a Powerful Owl saved my life.

In 2009 I was living in an old house in Red Hill, Bunurong Country. On a cold, clear and quiet July night I heard the booming call of a Powerful Owl – like a Boobook Owl if it had a deeper voice and a megaphone.

Powerful Owls are the largest owls in Australia, with a wingspan of over a metre. They’re also at risk of extinction, largely due to destruction of their habitat, and particularly the loss of the hollows where the owls nest that only form in really old trees.

So when I heard the call on that night I crept down the hill hoping to get a closer look. As I entered the forest there it was, right before my eyes in all its glory, on a low branch literally only a metre or two away from me. I stared into its amazing gaze and it seemed to look right through me.

Ten minutes of owl appreciation followed until suddenly I started hearing fireworks and the owl turned and flew away. But as I started on my way back up the hill I found the fireworks were actually the sounds of the house I lived in erupting in flames. I lost everything – my field guides!, my guitars! – but thankfully nobody was hurt and it was very lucky I wasn’t in the house. From then on I thanked the Powerful Owl and I have spent a lot of time trying to make sure its homes are safe.

Greater Melbourne’s hidden biodiversity

It might be surprising to find such a large wild predator on the outskirts of the city, but actually Greater Melbourne is full of nature, and precious remnants of some of our most threatened ecosystems and habitat for wildlife and plants at risk of extinction.

Many of those are found on private land, including the century-old trees that the Powerful Owls need for nesting, and bushland where they might find possums to eat.

There are so many rare plants, animals, habitats that are not represented in public reserves. People’s “backyards” or properties around Melbourne can be globally significant. Something that might feel common because you see it a lot may be hugely important from a conservation perspective.

I was born and raised on the Mornington Peninsula and blissfully enjoyed the beaches, foothills, swamps, forests and woodlands around me. Soon I became interested in conserving these natural wonders. In my early youth I learned that a remarkable patch of forest on the Mornington, Greens Bush, was going to be developed.

Driven by community campaigning, Trust for Nature held an appeal to raise $1.3 million to buy the forest and protect it forever. It is now part of Mornington Peninsula National Park, and if you can’t find me, that’s probably where I am.

Melbourne’s most elusive wildlife

I try and spend as much of my time visiting many nature reserves in Greater Melbourne as I can. Each reserve is different and tells a story about the habitat that occurs there. I also love hearing the tales of conservation at each place, reading about the sometimes unlikely naturalists, public campaigns, passionate community members, ecologists or whoever it is who have fought or sacrificed to make these places available for us to enjoy. I never seem to run out of places to explore and even if I did they tell different stories every season you visit.

Each of them is usually home to at least one threatened species or community, like the Powerful Owl, that always gets me excited. Another such species is the Australasian Bittern. They are cryptic birds and hard to see most of the time unless you are wading through a drain or wetland. There are thought to be less than a thousand left in Australia, and perhaps fewer than a hundred in Victoria.

Surprisingly, some of the best remaining habitat for these endangered birds is in swamps around Melbourne’s south east, including Tootgarook Swamp on the Mornington, where Trust for Nature has worked with landholders to protect and restore large areas of wetlands.

We know eight bitterns are using the site but there could be even more. Tracking has shown that one bittern travelled 395 km from the Coleambally rice crop to get there. It’s not just bitterns at Tootgarook: we’ve recorded 159 bird species, 13 reptiles, nine frogs, 12 mammals, and 248 species of native plants.

The battle to save Melbourne’s bandicoots

The bush around Melbourne also used to be filled with the scurrying of small marsupials like bandicoots. In 1862 English hunter and naturalist Horace William Wheelwright recorded that bandicoots were “common throughout the whole bush around Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula.”

Three species make their homes around Melbourne. You might find Long-nosed Bandicoots sneaking around in the dark in some select places in the outer north, south and eastern suburbs. The Eastern Barred Bandicoot is a critically endangered species that has recently been reintroduced into Phillip Island, French Island and Churchill Island. Happily, as of 2024 some are happily residing on properties protected with conservation covenants.

I am considerably obsessed with the endangered Southern Brown Bandicoot, and have spent many years surveying, trapping and generally stalking them. With one of the shortest gestation periods of any mammal (about 11 days), they can breed up to four times a year. Until about a decade or so ago you used to be able to find them in places like Greens Bush, Braeside Park and Langwarrin but now they are much more restricted.

There is a great population at Cranbourne Botanic Gardens and in the surrounding housing estates. Westernport and Koo Wee Rup swamp have a few good spots too.

Part of our work is tracking down the locations and trying to protect the sites with conservation covenants.We don’t want to lose any more, and well-managed permanent protection is essential to ensuring their survival.

If you know any good bandicoot spots, let us know!

A nighttime chorus: the Growling Grass Frog

Sometimes when I’m looking for bandicoots I hear the distinctive call of the Growling Grass Frog, a large bright green frog with gold spots. Their voices, like a raven with a stutter, boom across a quiet night and they can guide you to water. These frogs used to be found right across the state but now they are really restricted to areas around Melbourne and south west Victoria.

Some of their remaining refuges are close to industrial places in the north and west of Melbourne, in rain-fed wetlands in the south, and some drains and ponds in the east. Growling Grass Frogs need still water with mats of floating plants, and vegetation growing around the edges, but without trees. You can create habitat for them by modifying your pond, dam, or wetland; I built a 4×4 m pond and planted it out with wetland species. After a few months it was graced by a Growling Grass Frog.

The future of Melbourne’s wildlife

Greater Melbourne has lost a lot of species but there is still so much hope, so many species holding on and so much we can do to protect them.

We can all play a role in protecting these species and supporting Trust for Nature’s work goes a long way. Private land is integral to conservation work and all the species I have mentioned are linked to private land.

In our work we are so lucky to meet people who have either dedicated part of their lives to conservation or made a contribution that has helped save a species or community. With your help, we believe the future of conservation around Melbourne will be bright.

With a bit of hard work we hope that Melbourne will be just as known for its coffee and live music as it is for its thriving ecosystems and healthy diversity of flora and fauna. Currently you can drive 45 mins from the CBD and pass about 5-10 threatened species. A great outcome would be that in 10 years all these species were still there, and no longer threatened. Let’s do it together.