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Frogmouth
Tawny Frogmouth - Podargus
strigoides
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Ff
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Frogmouths are night birds of forests and woodlands and are distant relatives of owls. They have short, broad beaks (which give them their name) and they eat, amongst other things, scorpions, spiders and centipedes.
During the day Frogmouths rest, usually on logs, branches or tree stumps. The grey-brown colour and uneven pattern on their feathers allow them to blend in almost perfectly with the bark of the tree. To help with the camouflage, the birds will sit perfectly still, fluff their feathers over the branch and close their eyes. They often look just like another broken branch.
For many years the early settlers in Australia believed that the 'boo-book' or 'mo-poke', call that was common throughout the bush, came from the Tawny Frogmouth. As a result the Tawny Frogmouth was called a mopoke. It was many years later that the real owner of the call was found to be a small owl, appropriately called a Boobook. The frogmouth's call is a very deep, and rather monotonous humming.
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