in the late afternoon, I cycle down to the Cooks River with the intention of some exercise and photographing the Tawny Frogmouth pair that roost near Younger Avenue. A few days earlier, I had noticed one of them sitting on a nest.
I wanted to photograph the Tawny Frogmouth leaving the nest and then the second of the pair taking over the brooding duty. I was only partly successful.
I arrived at their roosting site around 5:15 pm and soon spotted the birds on the nest. I could not spot the second one. I got my camera ready and took a few photos.
At about 5:44 the bird started moving slightly. Sunset was about 5:20 pm and by now it wasstrating to get quite dark, making photography very difficult. From my previous experience, I was using an 135 mm f 1.8 lens, together with a very high ISO (around 25,000 ISO).
I could here the faint calls of the second Tawny Frogmouth coming from somewhere upstream. All of sudden, at 5:45 pm the birds quickly and very silently flew off from the nest.
But no bird came to take over.
I can only conclude that there are no eggs in the nest. Perhaps the bird has been sitting there in anticipation of laying eggs? And this is the pair that have not produced any chicks despite sitting on a nest for long periods of time each of the last 3 or 4 years that I have been watching them.
