Tawdry Frogmyths

By Steve Van Dyck

The only bird’s beak I have ever had to prize open with a screwdriver belonged to an angry Tawny Frogmouth clamped onto a mate’s arm. On that occasion I remember thinking that, given the choice between the frogmouth, a Turkey Vulture, my mother-in-law’s bum-picked chooks and a scrotum-necked Malibu Stork, the prize for the world’s most unfortunate-looking bird must surely go to that golden-eyed, lock-jawed frogmouth.

Many of us have seen a Tawny Frogmouth but, sadly, to most it constitutes no more than road kill…a cold grey pizza of smashed feathers and mushed gristle blown around between traffic lanes. To others it’s a faceless creature that chants a monotonous bedtime mantra from somewhere out in their backyard. And then to a few wildlife orphan carers, it’s a fluffy white Muppet in a cardboard box that chortles all day for baby mice and grasshoppers.

What kind of bird is this fantastic Aussie phoenix that copped the fire in its eyes but never shook off the ashes? Mostly it’s not what we think it is.

1. The Tawny Frogmouth is tawny.

No, not usually. When I was in the North Epping Cubs, each snarling litter of eight-year-old boys had its own jungle colour signified by a little patch of felt that was sewn onto our sleeves by our mothers and then eaten off by moths. I belonged to the “tawny” pack, and my felt triangle was coloured a yellowish brown. A few years later when I discovered that the big grey birds that sat in our ironbark were called Tawny Frogmouths, a lifelong chromatic confusion took root. Since then I’ve found out that all male Tawny Frogmouths are grey, and that, while females can be grey, rufous or chestnut, most of them are also grey! We Aussies are simply creatures of habit when it comes to old names tagged onto familiar objects. It’s like the way we call that revered, pigless bun full of salad and minced ears…a ‘hamburger’!

2. The Tawny Frogmouth is a stick.

No, but soft feathers don’t come any stickier.

When a Tawny gets wind of an intruder it does a bizarre thing. Instead of giving a squawk, emptying its bowels and flying off, it quickly and quietly transforms itself into a branch. Watching a Tawny shift into stick mode is to see its fluffy plumage suck in and flatten into strips of flaking bark, its eyes squint to thin strings of oozing sap and its beak to poke out like the dry, horny end of a snapped limb. In its final stiff, imperiously wooden pose, the frogmouth, looking every bit like a Federal Treasurer, is usually ignored by the rest of the world.

It is remarkable that almost as an accompaniment to the cold pillar look, the Tawny Frogmouth can, when the weather is bleak enough, slip into a shallow torpor (semi-hibernation) where its energy reserves are extended by lowering its body temperature by as much as 10 ° C.

Although the Tawny’s stick routine probably evolved to reduce its chances of daytime predation and mobbing by other birds, it’s not 100 per cent safe, as was once demonstrated in a big bloodwood near our driveway. A crow must have seen a frogmouth shuffle on its nest and, not fooled by the stern looks and frosty stares, knew that it was practically defenceless. And so, with the frogmouth gurgling and shrieking, the crow yanked and tugged at its tail and wings, trying to unseat it from the nest. Each time the Tawny came unstuck, the crow lunged in and tossed out one of the chicks. After 20 minutes the show was over, the nest empty, the frogmouth flown away and the crow eyeing off the fluffy takeaway below.

3. The Tawny Frogmouth is a Banksia Man.

No, Banksia Men aren’t half as scary! Sydney’s children of the ’50s were afraid of only two things: Grey Nurse Sharks (thanks to a beat-up of shark-attack misinformation) and Banksia Men (thanks to May Gibbs and her Snuggle Pot and Cuddle Pie bedtime stories). The first time I ever encountered Tawny Frogmouths was halfway up a huge Banksia tree. I was trying to reach some cicadas when suddenly the trunk opened up. I can still see those huge, sulphurous, steam-shovel beaks lunging at me, the blinking of great wild yellow eyes, the snapping and clapping and hissing and wings flapping all over the place. Even before hitting the ground I remember thinking how Banksia Men, with their scrawny naked bodies and knobbly knees, were jackstraw compared to the cauldron of camouflaged rage I’d just baled out of.

4. The Tawny Frogmouth is an owl.

No, it is a nightjar, but on the matter of knobbly knees, it was the peculiarly weak, un-owl-like legs that gave the Tawny’s genus its name Podargus, which comes from the French podarge (‘gouty feet’), referring to the feeble toes and short legs found in all the frogmouths. The hugely broad beaks, tufty monobrow and long tails are also frogmouth features not found in owls. But in an odd turnaround, the specific epithet strigoides means ‘owl-like’! So don’t feel embarrassed if you thought your first frogmouth was an owl; everyone else did too.

For all its gruesome appearance there is no doubt that most Aussies, happy to identify with things less than perfect, embrace the Tawny with custodial affection. It doesn’t really matter if you call it an owl or a Banksia Man or a mopoke, there is only one thing you have to get right with a frogmouth; if you grab one, make sure you shy away from its bear-trap beak. This is one case where, if you don’t have a toolbox handy, you don’t want to get the wrong end of the stick!

Further Reading

Higgins, P. (ed.), 1999. Handbook of Australian, New Zealand & Antarctic birds. Vol. 4. Parrots to dollarbird. Oxford University Press: Melbourne.

Holyoak, D.T., 2001. Nightjars and their allies. Oxford University Press: Oxford.

Dr Steve Van Dyck is a Senior Curator of Vertebrates at the Queensland Museum where he has worked since 1975.

TAWNY FROGMOUTH

Podargus strigoides

Classification:

Order Caprimulgiformes (nightjars). Family Podargidae (frogmouths). One of 14 spp., 3 of which occur in Aust.

Identification:

Kookaburra size about 42 cm long. Usually mottled grey. Broad, flat beak, spiky monobrow, huge orange-yellow eyes. Call, mostly a monotonous ‘oom-oom-oom’.

Distribution and Habitat:

Most open, wooded habitats throughout Aus.

Biology:

Nocturnal. Breeds Aug.–Dec, 2–3 white eggs on flimsy platform of sticks built on exposed horizontal branch. Incubation 30 days, by male (day) and female. Fledge at 30 days. Home range 10–80 ha. Largest bird known to enter torpor.

More information and photos of Tawny Frogmouths from the Australian Museum: http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/tawny_frogmouth.htm