Peter Adams photograph

A Tawny Frogmouth awaits graduation

Laid back Tawny

Tawny frogmouths are perhaps Craig's favourites. "They are gorgeous little birds," he says. "I just love them. There's not a mean bone in their body, they're just pleasant and relaxed."

Unfortunately they are too relaxed for their own good. As Craig says: "They tend to sit on the road and so get injured. I get lots of them."

He is most emphatic they must not be referred to as owls. "I'm going to have that tattooed on my forehead," he jokes, "because I'm sick of correcting people." (Including it must be admitted, your correspondent.)

Their zoological name is Podargus strigoides; owls belong to either the Ninox or Tyto genus. Like owls they hunt at night.

Stealth hunters, Craig calls them, with very soft feathers that allow them to silently pursue lizards, small mammals and moths. They have amazing sensory plumes on top of their beak, which means they can sit still as a stick (actually it's known as 'pencilling') until a moth comes cruising past, when the sensitive feathers alert them and snap, a tasty morsel for dinner.

In their cage they perch side by side, closely pressed up to one another on the eucalypt branch, their striped colouring of black, dun and white just like the bark's colourings, well enough camouflaged to appear as if they were a spur of the branch.

They edge their broad bills into the air, close their eyes and pretend they are simply not there.

The female got caught in the wire placed around trees so cattle won't eat the foliage and when she was taken out of the tangle had broken tail feathers.

Although she's another success story, due to be returned to the wild, her fellow inmate in the aviary, a male, can't be released because he has a dropped wing and fused shoulder muscles caused by some unknown major collision. "He can still fly a little, but there's no way he could hunt," explains Craig. "Tawnies are also family animals. These two are good mates, so I'll wait until another one comes in to keep him company before letting the little girl go free."

And when that day comes Leatherwood Online will be there to record her graduation flight into the wild. Patsy Hollis

 

A Wedge-tailed Eagle adopts a threat pose with a White-bellied Sea Eagle while Craig looks on

Photography by TIM DUB

::: WILD STUFF

Raptor refuge
a net success

Part II | The list of creatures who've graduated from the refuge reads like a roll call of Tasmanian wildlife, the recorded outcome a formal shorthand that gives little hint of the emotional rollercoaster of satisfaction and disappointment that underpins Craig’s solitary work.

Masked owl, caught electric fence, dropped wing, clasped right talon, almost dead, did really well, released my place can still hear her

“Brown Falcon, released; White Faced heron, 12kg food in four weeks, released Coningham; Rufus Wallaby, concussed, released; Sparrow Hawk, concussed, released here; Southern Boobook (sic: an owl), damaged eyelid on barbed wire, deceased; Masked owl, caught electric fence, dropped wing, clasped right talon, almost dead, did really well, released my place can still hear her”

How does he find his patients? “Sometimes vets ring up with an injured animal, sometimes people call me direct, but mostly it’s the nature conservation wing of the DPIWE that asks me to look after them.” The refuge is run on a not-for-profit basis and frugal funds.

Craig Webb and a furry friend — stuffed and mounted

Craig is a volunteer on the Reptile Rescue and Relocation program, but catching snakes brings in only $30 per snake (Craig charged $40 for a 2m snake at the bottom of a 7m well — the customer didn’t quibble over the extra 10 dollars).

Roadkill provides much of the food for the carnivores and mice are only a few dollars per thousand from the University.

Parks and Wildlife Tasmania has donated a freezer for this meat, while the occasional salmon (a treat for the Sea Eagles) is kept in a hessian bag on top of one of the outbuildings, safely out of reach of Craig’s feisty little Staffordshire terriers.

Craig is studying via an on-line correspondence course in Wildlife Husbandry and Rehabilitaion and is investigating development grants and the possibility of further corporate sponsors.

Furthermore, he wants to establish the refuge as a resource for Tasmanian schools.

Many of the injured birds or animals are endangered or threatened with extinction, through habitat loss, accident or, in some cases, the mindless actions of people.

Craig’s belief is that their best protection lies with the next generation sharing something of the particular values that have compelled his own destiny, to make the world a better place by caring, whenever possible, for creatures less fortunate than ourselves. ¶

PART I | PART II