Breeding-Season Diet Of A Pair Of Barking Owls Near Armidale, New South Wales

The diet of the Barking Owl 'Ninox connivens' in various parts of Australia was summarized by Higgins (1999), with additional data for sites in temperate Victoria and arid western Queensland provided by Taylor et al. (2002) and Debus and Rose (2003), respectively. The owl’s diet in the Armidale district, on the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales, was documented by Debus (1997, 2001) - mainly the breeding and non-breeding diet of a family of owls on Boorolong Creek 25 kilometres west of Armidale. The owl preys on vertebrates (varying proportions of birds and mammals according to season and locality), supplemented with arthropods in the warmer months. This paper describes the diet of a pair of Barking Owls at Dumaresq Dam ten kilometres north-west of Armidale (30°30'S, 15l°40'E), in spring-summer September 2003 to February 2004 and again in spring (September-early December) 2004.