With ‘morning ball’ it is important not to pelt the ball into a tree containing a nesting magpie or butcherbird. However, the game late this morning (Rocky Knob Park, Narrabundah) was interrupted by a sound first taken to come from a heavy vehicle reversing at one of the nearby housing redevelopment projects in Inner South Canberra. Then it sounded more like the territorial humm, humm, humm of one of the local frogmouths, usually heard at night. This took my eyes to the old magpie nest, used by frogmouths for the last 2 years. Sure enough, there was the retenanted nest, missing much of the wire of previous seasons. The daytime calling from the nest (a warning call?) is what makes this incident mildly reportable. So yet another yellowbox Mr Ball must keep clear of. The art of frogmouth photography requires, of course, that the subject is captured with eyes closed. An open-eyed frogmouth in daylight proclaims to all that the photographer has disturbed the bird. GD
