Stuart Rae

Papuan Frogmouths

A female Papuan Frogmouth Podargus papuensis sits in her daytime roost, watching out, as she was when I first detected her.

Then she smoothly adopted her concealment pose as I approached. By stretching out her neck and flattening against the branch, she looks just like another piece of branch.

In the two previous posts I described some of the birds that we caught when on a mist-netting bird survey in the Kutini-Payamu National Park in Cape York, northern Queensland, Australia. As I study Tawny Frogmouths in the Canberra area, I was always on the look out for frogmouths while on the trip. These are some photographs of the birds that I did see, there were probably many more that I missed, as they are rather tricky to spot.

A male Papuan Frogmouth peeks around a branch where he is sitting on his nest. The male frogmouths attend the nest during the day. The females, like the one above, spend the day roosting nearby, usually in a different tree.

The same male from a different angle, against a clear sky, which makes him a little more easy to spot. He was high in the rainforest canopy, about 20 m up, and these photographs were taken with a long lens. There are a lot of trees and many many branches to scan when looking for these birds. He is also a little more obvious as he is standing over the nest rather than sitting low on it in a concealment pose. It looked like he had very small chicks beneath him.

This is another male on a nest, which John Rawsthorne found while watching a flock of honeyeaters feeding on nectar in the flowers next to the frogmouth.

A pair of Papuan Frogmouths sitting through the day on a shady branch of a paperbark tree.

The same pair from a side-on view. They had chosen one of the lower more open branches in the canopy, but stayed in the shade. Their eyes were closed when I first found them as they were quite relaxed.

However, when I approached, they opened their eyes and seemed to scrutinise me. Was I a threat to them.

Neither bird adopted a concealment pose and they settled down, but the male still watched me through narrowed eyelids.

The female was a bit more cautious, and continued to watch me with wide eyes. Photographers might think that I was using flash to take these shots, because the birds are so well lit, for birds that live in shady trees. But no, I never use flash to photograph birds in daylight. I do not like the unnatural lighting effect. This bird is lit from underneath naturally. They were perched over water and the sunlight was reflected back up onto them.

It wasn't an aggressive stare, more watchful. Her face is not fully lit as it would be with flash. Rather, the reflected light has picked out details and the double highlight in her eye shows the sky and the reflected sun below centre. A very unusual effect, with delightful results.

Delightful birds.