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Tawny Frogmouth

By 11:26:00 , ,

Tawny Frogmouth



We have two Tawny Frogmouths that sleep in a big gum tree behind our house.  At one time they were nearly always there on the same branch, then it fell down and they moved away for a while. Now they are back again in the same tree. They can be very hard to spot, as they blend in well with the bark. Sometimes at night we can hear them calling. The sound is deep and rhythmic sort of woooo woooo woooo. 

Link to a recording someone made of their sound.


The first time we heard it we thought it was a frog or an alarm of some electric thing like a phone! Then we went outside and eventually spied him in a tree (at first we were looking on the ground for a frog). We watched it. Then we all glanced away for some reason, when we turned again and he was gone! Not a sound not a stirring! He just disappeared into thin air.

The two Tawny Frogmouths are probably a pair and will stay together till one of them dies. They can live to be 12-14 years old. Unlike owls they catch food using their beaks not talons and wait sitting on a tree branch for their food to appear, instead of flying around looking for it. Considering they haven’t all died that must work, so really they are pretty smart birds. Mostly they eat insects (especially moths) and other crawly things like spiders, centipedes and sometimes frogs.



Cool fact: The tawny frogmouth is not actually an owl but classified with kookaburras and kingfishers.


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