Photo by tcollins
Location: Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
- Podargus strigoides
Identification
35–50 cm long. Yellow eyes and a wide olive grey to black beak topped with a tuft of bristly feathers. Silver-grey above, paler below, streaked and mottled with black and rufous. The subspecies varies widely in size. In subspecies P. phalaenoides, some females are rufous instead of grey.
Distribution
Australia, Tasmania and southern New Guinea.
Taxonomy
Three subspecies are recognized[1]:
- P. phalaenoides:
- North Australia (north of latitude 20°S)
- P. brachypterus:
- Mainland Australia (west of Great Dividing Range)
- P. strigoides:
- Australia (east of Great Dividing Range) and Tasmania
Habitat
Forest and scrubs, to parks and gardens
Behaviour
They remain sitting very still on a low perch, and wait for food to come to them. The diet includes rats, mice, cicadas, beetles, and frogs caught with their beaks.
They build a loose, untidy platforms of sticks, lined with green leaves, which they use each year. 2-3 eggs are laid. Both parents incubate the eggs for about 30 days (the males during the day), and both parents feed the chicks. The young fledge after about 25 days.
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2017. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2017, with updates to August 2017. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2021) Tawny Frogmouth. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 29 April 2021 from https://www.birdforum.net/wiki/Tawny_Frogmouth
