A close encounter with a tawnie, photographed as it happened... Yesterday I looked out to see a tawny frogmouth (podargus strigoides) sitting on my terrace railing. As a rule they are very hard to spot in trees being both masters of camouflage and nocturnal. I was concerned that it was... a) Awake at this ungodly hour. b) Not in a tree but highly visible. While watching spellbound, magpies and noisy mynah birds began gathering, squawking first at a distance so the tawnie stretched into it’s camouflage log look to blend in with a tree but not being in a tree the birds not fooled and in a Hitchcock second they all swooped down attacking it. Mercifully it instantly flew off. The charming and carnivorous tawnies, beloved in Australia, are often confused with owls, the ‘strigoides’ of it’s name means ‘owl-like’ though they are more closely related to the nightjars. Unlike owls they don't have curved talons on their small feet and their call resembles a smudged version of the cuckoo. I so hope my visitor is healthy, safe and asleep, log like, in a tree.