Grass Owls in clover over platoons in ratoons

Rat plague! screamed heading and story in Ingham's Herbert Valley Express at the weekend. So female Eastern Grass-Owl (Tyto longimembris) arcing away after flying out of swamp ricegrass in Tyto Wetlands today should be living in clover, after gobbling squeaking platoons of cane rats amid the ratoons.

Not so sure about there being more rats than usual as the cane harvest nears an end. But it's surely a great time of year to be exclusively a rat eater. What happens to the rat? Well, it goes down, is digested and repacked bones and hair for coughing up as a pellet (above left): one pellet, one rat, as spread out above.