When swooping birds are mentioned, we immediately think of magpies, or perhaps lapwings (plovers).
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A tawny frogmouth is not usually brought to mind.
A Smythes Creek resident reports that he has been swooped many times – and over a long period – by a frogmouth.
He writes: “We are, almost every evening for the last three to four weeks, being swooped by a tawny frogmouth, and it often has several goes at us.”
Writing only a week ago, he continues: “Tonight at 6pm, as soon as I got out of my car it hit me in the back of the head, which it’s done many times now.
“Is this normal behaviour, and is there something we may be doing to aggravate it?”
Firstly, no, it is not normal behaviour for a tawny frogmouth to swoop and strike a person at this time of the year. It may happen in the breeding season, when the adults have eggs or chicks nearby, but the frogmouth breeding season is in spring, so eggs or chicks are most unlikely in May. Territorial and defensive behaviour should be at its lowest point. While swooping is sometimes recorded in the breeding season, actual striking is much less frequent.
Secondly, there is not likely to be anything the Smythes Creek residents are doing to aggravate the bird.
They are simply arriving at home in their car at the end of the day, as they have done for many years. Frogmouths elsewhere ignore such routine human behaviour.
The swooping has occurred from dusk to midnight. Like owls, frogmouths are silent fliers. A tawny frogmouth is the size of a kookaburra.
A whack to the face with wings, beak or feet could be potentially dangerous.
Frogmouths use their wide, hooked beaks to pick up prey such as moths, beetles, mice, crickets and frogs.
The prey is then swallowed whole, rather than being ripped apart by the beak.
They do not carry prey in their feet, so their claws are not as long as those of owls.
A concluding remark from Smythes Creek says: “We are wary when we go outside now. A torch held up works, or we just run. We love having the frogmouths around, so we are not worrying about it, but we would love to know why.”
BANDED SPIDER
A handsome spider found recently at Lethbridge was the banded orb-weaver, with several fine dark stripes across its dull-yellow abdomen.
Another feature was its black-and-yellow banded legs, resembling striped football socks.
It was found in its typical low web among grasses and sedges.
