Tawny Frogmouth breeding 2012

After a period in Autumn when the birds were unusually hard to find they have taken to daytime roosting more or less continually on a perch in a  Eucalyptus meliodora close to our vegetable garden,  I have been checking last years nest site for signs of activity, but have not observed anything until today.

Following a post to the COG chatline by Stuart Rae I gave the tree a very thorough scouring today and found a well stomped nest in the same place as last year.

The fresh leaves visible and woven into the upper part of the nest suggests to me that there has been very recent activity.  Given the generally compressed nature of the nest I think they have been quietly working on it for a few days (they walk up and down on the nest to flatten out the twigs dumped on it).

An interesting thought is that on a couple of occasions in the last week the birds have been 'ooming' during the day. They are normally silent, so I wonder if this indicates that the 'mones were stirring!

In the above image (click it  to enlarge)  the tree marked 1 is the first which they used (for three years).  During that period they roosted in the tree marked 2, which according to Google Earth is 31m away

Last year they shifted the nest to the tree marked A, which is where they look to be building this year.  Their current favourite roost is the tree marked B which is again, according to Google Earth, 31m away.  (Needless to say, the day after posting this they turned up in the tree marked '2'.  Presumably they had been dealing out grief to the frogs in the Creek.)

The male shifted to the nest on 13 September: about a week later than last year and 11 days later than 2010.

The female was initially tricky to locate on that day but she turned up in a small tree very close to the original nest site.  Last year she spent approximately half the period while eggs were in the nest in that position (moving closer to the new nest site when the chicks emerged).  Here she is: