Around 09.00 yesterday there was an avian brouhaha about 10 metres
from our place. In a stringybark was a Tawny Frogmouth and a pair of
Gang-gangs, being harassed by six Pied Currawongs in surrounding trees.
The Gang-gangs made a colossal noise, with the female finally hanging
upside down from the branch. They then flew off.
Meantime the Frogmouth was barking fiercely with wide open beak,
showing the lovely lemon-velvet lining to its beak. Eventually the
currawongs drifted away. Later in the morning the frogmouth preened
and began to make its oo-oo-oo call, but very very
quietly. Practising its wooing call, or making contact ?
In the evening, in the gloaming, it began take-off preparations. At
1930 it stretched first one long wing, then the other, shuffled and
rotated its head. Repeated this at intervals until 1940, when it was
quite a bit darker. Then in floated two dark shapes to two nearby
trees, one adult Tawny and one smaller. A family re-union! Followed
by a bit of hawking near a street light, and then off hunting in more
distant places.
Alas! they were not there this morning.
Muriel Brookfield
COOK, ACT
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