Tawny Frogmouth parent foraging for fledglings dusk Gardiners Creek Melbourne Australia15 March 2023

This Tawny Frogmouth (Podargus strigoides) family were seen after dark in some dead branches in a wooded area along the banks of the Gardiners Creek, also known as the Kooyong Koot waterway. Tawny Frogmouths are nocturnal Australian birds. During the day they roost on tree branches. Tawny Frogmouths are believed to mate for life and build a new nest each year, often on a near horizontal, strong branch junction in a mature Australian native tree. In this particular Tawny Frogmouth nest one chick hatched earlier than the other and is still larger than the other even after fledging. The larger chick fledged on about 14 February 2023 and the smaller one about 25 February 2023. In the beginning of this video the adult Tawny Frogmouth is seen at the left of the screen perched on a gumtree branch with the larger fledgling Tawny Frogmouth on the right. The smaller fledgling Tawny Frogmouth flies up to join them on the same branch, landing next to the others at the right side of the screen. The larger fledgling Tawny Frogmouth is now in the middle and actively begs the parent for food. The parent Tawny Frogmouth flies away and is followed by first the larger fledgling, and later the smaller fledgling flies off in the same direction. The Tawny Frogmouths hunt after dark and catch live invertebrates, such as insects, spiders, slugs and snails and small vertebrates such as mice and rats, which the parents feed on themselves and feed to their fledglings. Both fledglings in this video are still being fed by the parent Tawny Frogmouths. At night Tawny Frogmouths can spend several minutes on the ground looking for their food. They are slow to fly up off the ground after catching prey from the ground so are vulnerable to predator attack. As they have adapted to live near human populations, Tawny Frogmouths are at a high risk of pesticide exposure and then death from ingestion of pesticide affected prey [poisoned rats and mice]. While waiting to be fed at night the constant calling of fledgling Tawny Frogmouths attracts predators such as cats [feral and domestic] and foxes. It is important for the survival of Tawny Frogmouths to ensure that pet cats remain indoors from dusk to dawn. In the concurrent audiotrack the contact calling of the fledglings can be heard as well as the calls of other nearby birds; Noisy Miners (Manorina melanocephala) and Little Ravens (Corvus mellori). Additional sounds are insects [crickets], people walking along a nearby track and dogs barking.