Tawny Frogmouths

24 November 2018

Tawny Frogmouths are nesting at the moment. Tawnies (which are part of the Nightjar family) are probably more common than you might think, because they're so good at camouflage that in the right tree, they look just like a stick, especially as they tend to sit absolutely still with their beaks in the air.

Their call is pretty strange for a bird. It's a droning "woo-woo-woo" sound. Here is recording of one that Nick Talbot has uploaded to the Xeno-Canto website. http://www.xeno-canto.org/352950

The adult that lives down our street has developed a nifty feeding technique. She perches on a telephone pole one down the street from a street light, and then flies past the streetlight through the cloud of moths that the light attracts, then perches on the next pole down. She'll fly up and down the street all night, snaffling moths all the while.