It can be exclusively revealed that Darwin activist Robert Wesley-Smith has several redundant owls with an inglorious track record , and he is currently entertaining a flock of squatter ducks . He is shown here instructing one of the failed high tech owls- looking suspiciously like a disguised Dalek- to go out and frighten plant eating birds and blankety-blank possums on his fertile rural property at Howard Springs , some years ago .
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It seems Rob, a veteran agronomist, bought the owls in a bid to win the annual largest pumpkin competition run in conjunction with the Darwin Show . His ambition is to grow a 100 kilo pumpkin , his best effort so far 80kilos .
It would be an owl's feather in his cap if he produced a winning whopper pumpkin , enabling him to boast about it at Friday Club luncheons in the Noodle House and other important gatherings , where the Territory's future is shaped . Some of the owls were battery driven and had flashing eyes , the theory being they would frighten off birds likely to peck his pumpkin plants and voracious possums .
Of course , the batteries ran flat , the marauding birds and possums picked the pumpkin plants to pieces. This year , the seed appears not to have germinated , and the sightless , teetering owls are mouldering about the estate , almost composting .
It is interesting to note that the water police launch Brett Irwin in Townsville long ago abandoned using fake owls and another bogus bird of prey aboard ship to try and prevent birds, Seagulls especially, from messing all over the vessel .
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It is plain to see that the defunct Darwin owls do not scare ducks as a flock of them have moved into Wesley-Smith's watery block after recent stormy weather and will probably fertilise his canoe .
