Powerful owls nesting at Coffs Harbour Botanic Garden

A pair of endangered powerful owls have set up home in downtown Coffs Harbour - and that’s a nightmare on wings for possums and other small animals.

An apex predator is at large in downtown Coffs Harbour, much to the delight of a team of people who have been tracking what’s about during the night.

A pair of powerful owls - which feed on possums and gliders - has been detected in the Coffs Harbour Botanic Gardens.

This has proven a boon for the Friends of the Garden, who have also discovered a colony of squirrel gliders, which are listed as a vulnerable species.

The friends are using a network of camouflaged cameras to get a take on what’s about in the forest after sunset - and last year had distant footage of what is thought to be a rare tiger quoll.

Ecologist Graham Tupper is leading the charge as co-ordinator of the fauna survey team.

Graham Tupper: “It’s a special place here. I don’t know if there’s any place like it in Australia to be honest.” Picture: Chris Knight

“It’s astounding to have a nesting pair of powerful owls here as they are an apex predator whose range is from 400 to 4000 hectares, and the garden is only 20 hectares,” Mr Tupper said.

The endangered powerful owls are also fussy where they set up camp - favouring a hollow in a large eucalypt which is at least 100 years old.

Mr Tupper has started night-time public tours of the garden, where the community has been taken aback at the abundance of life in the oasis so close to the CBD.

“It’s fun for the kids as we find the animals through their eye-shine (reflected from torch light), but the spiders also have eye-shine which can make it pretty dramatic,” he said.

While the friends knew there were “a couple” of squirrel gliders getting about the garden, they have now stumbled upon a colony of the critters.

Squirrel gliders are slightly larger than sugar gliders, and Mr Tupper said each animal has a distinctive pattern on its forehead.

“So we want to name them - we’ve already given two a name in Kaz and Andrea,” he said.

But getting too attached to the squirrel gliders might not be a good thing as they could become a favoured item on the Uber Eats menu for the pair of powerful owls.

“Gliders and possums are their main food, and flying foxes,” Mr Tupper said.

The pair of powerful owls made their presence felt in the garden last year as well, raising two chicks.

“It’s a special place here. I don’t know if there’s any place like it in Australia to be honest.”