Buderim Tawny Frogmouth Rescue!

Living on Buderim Mountain, you often live with nature. Because we don't have domesticated animals, we share our yard with Scrub Turkeys, several varieties of parrots, rosellas, lorikeets, carpet snakes and Tawny Frogmouths. A family of the latter have lived in the trees around our house for several years now. Over the last weekend the relatively peaceful afternoon was shattered with strange squawking and bird calls.

Looking up at the top of a tall poinceana, I saw two Channel-billed Cuckoos (we are told these are migratory birds from New Guinea) having a life and death struggle with 2 Tawny Frogmouths. Two strange grey balls fluttered to the ground, a closer look revealed two little baby Tawnies and a broken nest. The big grey immigrants were going for the babies!

Quickly calling my family, we carefully surrounded the babies and kept the attackers at bay. Meanwhile, mum and dad were circling, distraught and beaks all a-snappin'

A quick call to the Wildlife Warriors hotline and we were given the instructions to hopefully save the chicks. "Make a new nest out of an ice cream container, put holes in the bottom to let rain out. Then catch the babies and put them in the new nest . . . in the same tree if possible" were the instructions. Unfortunately the poinceana is around 30 metres high and extremely dangerous to climb. So the nest was placed into a nearby tree which was easier to scale and yet, left them well and truly above the ground.

The chicks were carefully picked up in a towel and gently placed into the nest. The little cuties offered no resistance. One of the parents watched very closefully, while the other went to a nearby tree and slept!

We kept an eye them all afternoon and the watchful parent stood guard beside the nest.

Next morning brought a disturbing sight. The nest was empty and the Tawny Frogmouths were nowhere to be found!!

There was no sign of trouble, no feathers or evidence of any struggle. It is unlikely the parents would have given up their kids without a fight. So we are hoping they were taken to a safer place by the parents, to grow up here on the mountain.

The Tawny Frogmouths are often seen dead on the roads, they sometimes take an easy meal off roadkill, only to become victims of careless drivers and hoons running around late at night. If you are driving around the quiet streets of night-time Buderim, please be vigilant for the wildlife that shares our home.

If you would like to see more images leave a comment and I will post some more.