Nothing unusual in frogmouths not flushing, but in this case, some
interesting special circumstances. (A few decades ago now.)
My mother's house on Tamborine Mountain (inland from the Gold Coast) had
high (12 foot) ceilings and a large verandah. There was a horizontal beam
above the verandah rail, at a height of about three metres from the floor
and maybe half a metre below the roof. For some months three tawny
frogmouths roosted on the beam during the day. Two were noticeably smaller
than the third. Mother and juveniles, maybe. They did not flush.
The item of special interest was this. My mother would stand a couple of
metres from them and call very softly, imitating the frogmouth call. For a
while nothing would happen, but after half a minute or so one could see a
faint movement of the breast of the large one, moving in and out. Initially
no sound at all that I could hear (and this was back in the days when I had
good hearing) but gradually the sound would come, ever so soft at first, but
gradually building up to the normal frogmouth call volume.
Wish now that I'd had the sense to tape the the performance, but I didn't.
(No Aus. W'life Sound Recording Group in those days to encourage such
activities.)
Cheers
Syd
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