Information Report - Morepork

The Morepork

by Daniel Nuku  

I am learning to inform my audience through an information report.

Have you ever heard an owl on a dark gloomy night when you're taking a bush walk? Maybe even seen two big bright yellow eyes staring at you, then a flash of brown and white. Do you know what it is? It’s the Morepork, native to New Zealand! The Morepork is a nocturnal owl  with big beady eyes that have an advanced level of site. Unlike the well known kiwi the Morepork  is not flightless, it can go up up to very high speeds.

Appearance /Hunting

The Morepork has a short flat beak, black and brown type colours with a bit of white this helps it camoflash into its surroundings, also an adult Moreporks height is between  42cm-54cm  and the average weight is 175g-200g.Their super sonic eye’s have a very good vision that is used at night to track  down it’s prey. They fly at high speeds and swoop in and grab their prey. Moreporks mostly eat worms, small land mammals, small reptiles,  insects and even other birds.

https://harpursbizarre.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/03_morepork.jpg

Habitat

The Morepork lives in forested areas and suburbs around mountains and bushy places. The Morporks like dark places where there's no predators, tall trees and a good source of  insects and  worms. They are most commonly found in places with a generous amont of trees and shrublands. One of the key things that a Morepork needs in it’s habitat is tall trees to make nests with twigs  sticks and practically anything  they can find for example string and plastic. Also for swooping in and catching prey.  

Threats

The Morepork has many threats such as stoats, possums and rats, possums are big threat to  Moreporks, one of the reasons is because possums destroy their habitat and also because they can hear the calls from the babies to their mother and find the tree where the noise is coming from and they climb the tree and take the babies. Rats and stoats are also threats to Moreporks rat are because they carry diseases, if a morepork eats it its will become sick, it’s most likely to die when eating stoats too because they carry diseases like rats.

The Morepork is a native bird to New Zealand, it is a nocturnal owl that lives deep within bush and forests across New Zealand.  Moreporks have many threats,  reduction of habitat, possums, rats and stoats which are destroying trees and killing the baby Moreporks, we can help stop the all of these threats. So next time you hear one at night remember to act fast and help our native owl the Morepork.