Tawny Frogmouth - a fascinating australian bird

The Tawny Frogmouth is found throughout most of Australia and its preferred habitat is open eucalypt forest .

Males and females look alike and measure around 35- 50 cms long. They have a beautiful silver grey plummage, splotched and streaked with black and a reddish brown color.Their large round eyes are yellow and they have a wide beak that has tufts of bristly feathers above it. Although it looks a bit like an owl it is not related. The tawny frogmouth is more closely related to nightjars.

Tawny frogmouths make sharp clacking noises with their beaks and also make a reverberating booming call. Take a look at this interesting blog post that features great pictures and a recording of the call of the Tawny Frogmouth

The tawny frogmouth is insectivorous, hunting at night, it mainly feeds on bugs, moths and other insects. It does sometimes eat small lizards, frogs and rodents also but mainly relies on insects.

Photo courtesy of Michael Howard

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Tawny Frogmouths usually pair for life and return to the same nest site each year. Breeding season is from August to December.

The nest is an untidy collection of sticks, sometimes covered with green leaves on which to lay the eggs. They lay two or three eggs and take turns on sitting on the nest. The male usually sits in the daytime and the female at night. It takes approximately thirty days for the eggs to hatch. Both parents feed the babies which are ready to leave the nest about 25 days later.

Although generally seeming to be a placid type of bird, the tawny frogmouth will defend its territory and nest quite vigorously. Males will attack other males and although they may do a lot of posturing, confrontations can sometimes end in bloodshed.

Both parents will defend the nest from other predators like snakes and goannas. They do this by diving at with full force, striking the offender with their beaks in an attempt to dislodge it. This can be extremely dangerous for the bird, as it risks breaking its own neck with the force of the blow.

Photo courtesy of Alan Henderson

Whilst not considered an endangered species these birds do often die from pesticide poisoning. They eat insects that we have sprayed with pesticides and in turn the bird eats the affected insect .

One night when I was returning home from work I found a frogmouth sitting in my drive way. He just sat there so I stopped the car and went to have a look. Thinking there was something wrong with him I took him up to the house. He was perfectly calm and didn't struggle at all. I sat him on the top of the dog kennel and after a few moments he flew away. I did not know at the time that he would have simply been blinded by my car lights.

They are often hit by cars at night. Swooping after an insect it sees in the light of an oncoming car it can be blinded and consequently hit. Many wildlife refuges have to care for these birds and return them to the wild where ever possible. Sometimes, if they survive, their injuries are such that it is not possible to do this.

Wildlife carers often say that the Tawny Frogmouth makes a good foster parent to homeless and orphaned chicks looking after them as if it were their own.