The talk will be held at 7.30 pm on Monday, April 23 at the St Georges Basin Community Health Centre, 21 Meriton Street, St Georges Basin.

The talk is just in time for powerful owl breeding season, so come along to hear an update about powerful owls in the Shoalhaven.

Dr Mott will share what has been happening for owls in the greater Sydney Basin, including fabulous records of breeding success and she will provide data about how urban owls are using the landscape.

She will also talk about some of the developing threats to powerful owls, identified by the data collected by citizen scientists.

Dr Mott will give a brief update on what we can do to help urban birds.

The project also needs your help, as records for Shoalhaven powerful owls are limited in the project database.

Dr Mott would love to know how Shoalhaven owls are faring in the face of continuing urban expansion and your suggestions about what we can do to help our amazing nocturnal birds will be valued.

We hope to see you at the talk - it will be a hoot.

The talk is free for BirdLife Shoalhaven members, though a gold coin donation would be appreciated from non-members to cover costs and everyone is welcome.

Dr Mott has been managing the Birdlife Australia’s Powerful Owl project for 13 months.

She holds a PhD in Conservation Biology and is particularly interested in community-level responses to disturbance.

Dr Mott, chasing these ideas, spent the last 20 years working with faunal communities in the desert uplands of North Queensland, wet tropics rainforests and subtropical coastal forests of NSW’s mid-North coast, all great places for a person with an unquenchable love of wildlife.

She has had a varied career as a quoll trapper, fish cartoonist, lizard breeder, frog and albatross wrangler, flying fox mum, dissector of feral cats and educator; basically, using all these jobs as an excuse to go see critters.

Dr Mott says educating people about conservation is rewarding.