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Tawny frogmouth

The tawny frogmouth is a bulky owl-like bird growing to a 53 centimetres. It has silver-grey plumage, slightly paler below, streaked and mottled with black and rufous red, yellow eyes and a wide, heavy olive-grey to blackish bill.

Tawny frogmouth.
Tawny frogmouth. Credit: June Anderson

Where

You’ll have to look carefully to see a tawny frogmouth as its heavily streaked feathers give it great camouflage in the trees. During the daytime it spends most of its time sitting statue-like to resemble a branch stump. They can be found in almost any treed area in Booderee.

Feeding

Tawny frogmouths are night hunters, swooping down from the trees to capture lizards, frogs, insects, worms, slugs, snails and even small mammals.

Breeding

Look for poorly constructed stick platforms in trees for their nesting sites. Both sexes incubate the eggs, with the male sitting during the day and both sexes sharing sitting at night.

Sounds

Their beaks make loud clacking sounds and a soft oom-oom call is replaced by a louder grr-er when disturbed.