Tag:frogmouth

tawny frogmouth

Birds of Australia – Tawny Frogmouth

The Tawny Frogmouth is a species of Frogmouth native to Australia. Their species name, Strigoides, means owl-like. However, while nocturnal and carnivorous, Tawny Frogmouths aren’t owls. They are, in fact, more closely related to Nightjars.

Appearance
Tawny Frogmouth on tree branch

The Tawny Frogmouth is a stocky bird with a large head, rounded wings and short legs. They measure from 34cm for females to 53cm tall for males and weigh 680g. There are three distinct colour morphs, grey, chestnut and rufous, with grey being the most common in both sexes.

Grey males have silver-grey upperparts with black streaks and slightly paler underparts with white barring and brown mottling. Females of the grey morph are often darker with more rufous mottling. The eye is yellow, and the broad, heavy bill is olive-grey to blackish and hooked at the tip. It is topped with distinctive tufts of bristles. Southeastern Tawny Frogmouths are larger than their northern counterparts. The name Tawny Frogmouth came from their diet of frogs. They can live up to 14 years in the wild.

Differences to Owls

The Tawny Frogmouth is not an owl. It’s a night-jay or nighthawk. They have wide forward-facing beaks for catching insects, whereas owls have narrow downward-facing beaks used to tear prey apart. Their eyes are to the side of the face, while owls have eyes fully forward on the front. Owls have curved talons, but Tawny’s do not. However, like owls, they have soft feathers for stealthy, silent flight.

Camouflage
family of Tawny Frogmouth
A family of four Tawny Frogmouths on a broken, dead branch. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The Tawny Frogmouth exhibits one of the best examples of camouflage and visual mimicry of Australian birds. They perch low on a tree branch during the day, and their silver-grey plumage patterned with white, black and brown streaks, and mottles allow them to freeze into the form of a broken tree branch, rendering them practically invisible. They often sit on broken branches and thrust their head up at an acute angle to emphasise the resemblance to the broken branch.

Habitat and Distribution

The Tawny Frogmouth can be found in almost any habitat except dense rainforests and treeless deserts. They are common across forests, woodlands, and urban and rural areas throughout Australia, including Tasmania.

pair of Tawny Frogmouth
Pair of tawny frogmouths at Port Douglas Wildlife Habitat
Diet

The bulk of the Tawny Frogmouth’s diet is nocturnal insects, worms, slugs and snails, small mammals, reptiles, frogs and birds. They take their prey by pouncing from an elevated perch to the ground. They catch flying insects such as moths while the insect is in flight.

Breeding

Tawny Frogmouths have a regular breeding season from August to December, and both sexes incubate the eggs. The male will sit on the eggs during the day. However, both sexes share the egg sitting duty at night. Once the chicks hatch, the whole family can be seen roosting on the same branch, side by side. The nest of the tawny frogmouth is a loose platform of sticks in a forked tree branch. As a rule, only one clutch of 2 to 3 eggs is raised per season. However, southern Tawny’s may have two. The breeding pair will mate for life and often stay in the same territory for ten years.

Threats

Carpet Pythons take Tawny Frogmouths while they are roosting. When hunting prey on the ground, they can be taken by feral cats, dogs or foxes. The biggest threat to them, however, is habitat loss. They are reluctant to move on even once their habitat is destroyed, whether through land clearing or bushfires. Secondary poisoning from pesticides used in termite control and rat poison also impact their numbers, especially in urban areas. In addition, being nocturnal, they are vulnerable to vehicle collision as they have been known to fly after insects illuminated by headlights.

Status

The Tawny Frogmouth is considered of least concern on the IUCN Red List of threatened species.

© Bevlea Ross