Late Night Visitor – A Tawny Frogmouth (photos)
Feb 16th, 2010 by Sarah Koschak
Tawny Frogmouth (from ‘An Evening in the Australian Bush’ album) by Listening Earth
It’s 10.30 pm, and Andrew and I are about to head off to bed, when we hear a soft thump on the window pane.
From experience we know that a sound like this can only be made by either a large moth attracted by our house lights, or more excitingly, an owl hunting them. On past occasions we have found a Barn Owl outside picking off a Bogong Moth, and on another found a tiny Owlet Nightjar perched on the window ledge, peering in our bedroom window at us.
It is such a rare treat to see these nocturnal birds, so we are keen to see what may have made this noise.
Opening the door, we cautiously move outside, scanning the ground but see nothing nearby. We are about to head back inside when I casually look up.
“Don’t move! …” I tell Andrew.
Perched atop the garden umbrella next to him is a Tawny Frogmouth, Podargus strigoides. If he reached out he could almost touch it. It sits alert and unfazed, its yellow eyes glowing in the gloom, as we back off to get torches and camera.
After flapping to a nearby tree, our Frogmouth settles in, not seeming to mind being the centre of our attention for the next hour. It is a privilege to be so close as he preens and snaps at insects in the torchlight.
Beautiful marbled textures in the plumage…
Face showing those remarkable forehead plumes, which it is thought assist during aerial feeding by channelling ‘near-misses’ into the mouth.
Momentarily distracted by a moth flying past…
Preening…
…getting in a little deeper…
…ah! That’s better now!
Giving us ‘The Look’
Alert to every rustle on the ground
All a bit of a yawn!
Tawny Frogmouths are sometimes erroneously called ‘Mopokes’. But a Mopoke is more correctly the Boobook Owl, which makes the well-known “Mor-pork” call. Frogmouths sound quite different, making repetitive, low booming calls that carry for long distances, and can often be heard throughout the night.
A Tawny Frogmouth features on our album ‘An Evening in the Australian Bush’, and the audio above is a short excerpt from the final track, and the clip below presents excerpts from the whole album. More about this album.
‘An Evening in the Australian Bush’- album sample by Listening Earth
Established in 1993 by nature sound recordist Andrew Skeoch and photographer Sarah Koschak, Listening Earth offers a range of beautiful nature sound recordings from around the world.
"Our albums feature only the sounds of nature as you would hear in the wild - no music or other distractions. Recorded in often remote and pristine locations, they bring you the relaxing and beautiful sounds of our living planet. Listen, and let our recordings take you there."
Hi Sarah and Andrew,
What a gorgeous creature that Tawny Frogmouth is and I loved listening to the sound too. Thanks for sharing this gorgeous experience with me.
Love
Lee
xxx
I woke up at 4:30 last night and thought a car alarm was going off in the neighborhood. The sound was almost exactly like your recording but maybe a bit slower in repetition rate. I got up went outside and saw what I thought was an owl a couple of metres away from our window sitting on our telephone line. Thanks for the posting and the recording – helped solve the mystery of what was disturbing me last night!!
Hi, What beautiful photos! I am going outside now to look for our tawny frogmouth, as I know that is the sound I heard last night. A bit of excitment in the ‘burbs!
[...] Sarah, from Listening Earth Blog, offers a real Australian treat. She shares a fantastic series of photos of a nighttime visitor, as well as a sampling of the visitor’s interesting call. Head “out back” to see & hear what I’m talking about! [...]
Isn’t it wonderful when the object of your interest sits there and shows off for your camera? What a lovely bird, and unlike anything I’ve seen. The eyes are gorgeous!
What fantastic photos!
I had the pleasure of seeing one out in the bush at twilight in Queensland but at a distance and it didn’t look very attractive. These photos have completely changed my mind about them. Wonderful eyes and exquisite plumage.
I think it’s a real compliment when they go about their grooming as if you weren’t there.
Extraordinary photos of the Tawny Frogmouth. The more I know about the frogmouth species, the more I want to travel to see them. I love the shot of the forehead plumes and really appreciate the recording of the call.
It is wonderful !. You are the best photographer , from your nice pictures we can see a peaceful life in night time of this kind of animal. All the nice things are showing on your pictures .
That is best score because it is not easy to make high quality picture like what you have done
Great stuff – your page goes straight to my bookmarks. I will come back again soon to read some more.
We had a tawny frogmouth in our garden last night sitting on the frame of our patio roof. What a lovely surprise. I quickly searched for the binoculars to have a closer look. It was wonderful to see one in our back garden. A few nights before I had heard this unusual noise
at night time and wondered what it was. I now realise it must have been the frogmouth who had come to visit us earlier. Such a wonderful experience. I will be listening and looking out tonight to see if it comes visiting.
As a WIRES volunteer I have the absolute honor to work with these amazing creatures of the night, we often rescue the babies during spring when they fall from their nests and unfortunately cannot return them to their nests due to height issues so we hand raise them, they are the most adorable and inquisitive little things, and very trusting of humans, we have a pair of marbled frogmouths that live on our property and often at night the male will come and perch on our deck to pick spiders from the guttering among other insects, he is incredible to watch I am always mesmerized….marbled frogmouths are an endangered species and extremely rare they only live in a small pocket of Northern NSW east coast and a small pocket up near Cape Trib, its a blessing to have a pair on our land and to have seen them alive.
Wonderful occurrence. I once had a Tawny fly close over my head to a low branch in front of me while camping, in the near darkness. The whole thing was eerie, I didn’t even know I’d heard anything in particular, more a sensation, so I turned the torch on and there it was, looking and waiting. It was waiting for moths around the remaining fire but all it got was my flash photography!
Your photos are a great series, nice of it to pose.
I listened to the track immediately above from the Evening album – magic! Intending intend to buy it, but my questions – is this excerpt a compilation or did you really hear all those owls in the one place at the one time? And on the album is there a means of identifying the calls you hear? (I thought I heard boobooks, barking and powerful owls, but would like to check this and know what the other calls where that I missed).