The Frogmouths at Oatley Park...

[khiemtran]

Back to Sydney now, and to Oatley Park, where we went for a nature walk on our first weekend back. As you may recall, we went there last year looking for tawny frogmouths, but without success. Well, this time, there they were...




As it happened, we also saw frogmouths while we were on holiday, at Serendip Sanctuary between Geelong and Melbourne. It's an interesting question whether seeing them first there made it easier to spot them at Oatley, or if we were just luckier the second time around. Here's one of the frogmouths we saw in Serendip. This was a wild bird, that was watching us as we walked around.



And this is a caged bird that was inside a walk-thru aviary. As you can see, frogmouths are very "zen". (Unless, of course, you are a small prey animal being torn apart by one. In which case, I'm sure they will still be "zen" afterwards.)



But now back to Sydney and Oatley Park, where we walked along the foreshore track, looking carefully for any signs of camouflaged birds in the trees.



The first pair of eyes we spotted (thanks to Liem) belonged not to a frogmouth, but to something very special indeed.



This was one of a pair of owlet nightjars, in a tree not far from the path. Owlet nightjars are Australia's smallest nocturnal predator. Like frogmouths, they are not owls, but strongly resemble them in behaviour. Owlet nightjars are extra hard to spot because their eyes are non-reflective - so you can find them at night just by walking around with a torch.



We had almost reached the end of the path, when there they were! Two tawny frogmouths, in relative plain sight on exposed branches. As you can see, their camouflage makes them look like the rough bark of a tree.



This one isn't quite so zen. It's keeping one eye on us down on the path below.



And on the return trip, we stopped by the sea baths and Liem spotted yet another pair of eyes. This time it was a ringtail possum. A great end to a fantastic day out...

Comments

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Wow, the plumage of those frogmouths is just amazing, the texture, the colors... Really does its job. Good job, sharp-eyed nature walkers!

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

They look amazing, don't they? You can that with the right tree, they would be nearly invisible, although with the tree they were on in Oatley Park, they were relatively easy to spot.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

That plumage is amazingly bark-like. The owlet nightjars are interesting too. So owl-like. Presumably this is a case of parallel evolution.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly! It was especially cool to see the nightjars because we were so close. They were basically only a few metres away watching us through the foliage. Liem says he only saw them because he saw a pair of eyes looking at him.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

There must be something about watching eyes that make them noticeable to the human brain, even before the creature has been seen consciously.

I remember once getting an uneasy feeling in an upstairs room each time I glanced out of the window. Looking more carefully out of the window I saw a pair of eyes looking back at me from a few metres away. Looking more closely still, I could see that the owner of the eyes was a black cat that was viewing me from an upper tree branch.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow! What an extaordinary camouflage job!

The frogmouths are even stranger-looking than our European nightjars, and that's saying something...

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

They are very cool birds. We've been on the lookout for them in other places since then, but we haven't seen any. The next thing we still haven't seen is an actual owl. Three of our neighbours have seen them nearby, so they are around, but we haven't even heard any yet (maybe because we tend to be morning people...)

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

Great photos! Frogmouths are such uncompromising birds! (I saw one recently in The Last Wave, a 1970s ...ummm...environmental-horror-warning film (?) where it was standing for the ominously watching, judgemental spirit of the land (I think).)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

They are certainly good at ominous watching...

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Zen, maybe, but in that third photo, with its eyes closed, it has a sort of pained expression, as if the world is just a little too much to bear looking at.

Their feathers really do look remarkably like bark!

As for eyes, all this entry's creatures have great eyes, but the possum wins for ears (not much competition)--I'd love to pat the top of its head and scritch behind them (only if that was acceptable for the recipient, of course...)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Ringtails are very cute. We've got the larger brushtails around our house, and they make a lot of noise when they walk on our roof. (Brushtails are one of the least popular Australian mammals due to communal sleep deprivation...)