The thirty-eighth Tawny Frogmouth chick has just been born at Woodland Park Zoo, the latest addition to a very productive and procreative spring and summer. This chick joins seven adult Tawny Frogmouths.
Native to Australia, these nocturnal birds perch on tree branches and use cryptic camouflage to blend into their environment. Frogmouths are often mistaken as owls, and they do have many habits similar, but lack the strong, curved talons. Instead, the Frogmouths are actually more closely related to nightjars and whip-poor-wills.
The new chick has been born to first-time parents paired under a cooperative, conservation breeding program. “This breeding pair is genetically valuable as the parents’ blood lines trace directly back to wild lineages in Australia,” explained Mark Myers, bird curator at Woodland Park. Both parents are providing parental care in an off-view area and, according to Myers, “so far, based on the chick’s daily weight gains, we can tell the parents are doing a great job of feeding it.”
“A newly hatched Tawny Frogmouth chick resembles an oversized cotton ball,” said Myers, “In the coming weeks it will start to acquire its juvenile plumage and darker contour feathers that act as camouflage, blending into the color and texture of tree bark.”
For the moment, the Tawny Frogmouths are out of view as the nocturnal house isn’t open to visitors. Yet, Woodland Park Zoo has reopened to visitors, using timed-entry admission tickets. Find out more about entry, and how you can support the breeding programs that made this new chick possible, at Zoo.org (click here.)