Tawny Frogmouth with Baby Fluffball

[nonacaremac]

This wonderful bird is a tawny frogmouth. This one decided to nest in a tree at the end of my garden so I spent several weeks watching and taking pics. The tawny frogmouth's primary method of defence is to stretch its head up and sit absolutely still using its camouflage to play the game of 'I am am a broken branch stump.' They are very difficult to spot but when you do they are wonderful to photograph because they stay absolutely still. The first pic is of the classic, 'you can't see, me pose.' The second pic is of the chick, only a few days old. The third pic is the trainee chick and parent both in completely still mode. Hope you like them. All C&C welcome.

[Wavelength]

These images are really wonderful; i have never seen one in real life; do they live in places of human activity or stay aloof in forests etc.? Do you know what they feed on? from their owl like eyes is it proper to conclude they are active even at night?

[Geoff F]

Those work well and were obviously shot against a potentially difficult background.

[Chataignier]

Fascinating creatures. Thanks for sharing.

[escape]

Very interesting. How wonderful to have a few weeks to watch and photograph.

[nonacaremac]

Nandakumar: Tawny Frogmouths live all over Australia but not in deserts or really dense forests. They are common in populated areas but because of their brilliant hiding skills they are not often see. They eat snails bugs small lizards etc, mainly by jumping on them from above at night. They will catch insects in flight. Unfortunately we lose some every year through them jumping down onto their prey as it is illuminated by car headlights.

Geoff: Thanks. Yes it was a difficult background which is why I always take at least 3 bracketed exposures to blend over exposed highlights and overly dark shadows. And there is no problem with motion because they are very still so a hand held bracketing is very easy.

My thanks to all others who made a comment.

[Wavelength]

Thank you very much for your explanation