Saturday 2 October 2010

And now fire
Two days ago I noticed smoke rising from a patch of bush where I new there was a frogmouth nest. The park rangers were burning ground litter in the wood to reduce fire danger to the nearby suburbs. They did well, and the ground cover was only lightly burnt when I went in the day after. And no trees were damaged or canopy burnt. However, there must have been intense smoke during the burning and a bit of heat and flame - enough for an incubating frogmouth to desert his nest. This might not have been too much of a problem if they could safely leave their eggs during the day, but only fifty metres away was a pied currawong nest with young. They are predators of frogmouths eggs and young. The exposed white eggs of a frogmouth, left unguarded would have been an easy meal for the currawongs.


A few flames still licked on the day after. The frogmouth nest is up below the canopy.


This was the male sitting on the nest before the fire.


Now the nest is empty and abandoned. The currawongs were feeding their young in their nest while I was visiting the site. There was no sign of the frogmouths.

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