A Tree Frog and two Frogmouths in a tree

Several days ago I was lucky enough to be with two friends, in their backyard vegie garden in Burrawang. Suddenly there was a bit of a squeal, as a Frog had been found hiding amongst the leaves of a Cabbage which had just been picked.

Naturally I rushed to take a look, and found it was a delightful specimen of Lesueur's Tree Frog, Litoria lesueuri.The Frog was very agile, and it leapt out of my hand on to the gravel path, at which point it was beautifully camouflaged.
Apparently this Tree Frog is relatively common in this region, but I have not seen it before. You can go to that linked website and listen to the sound of its call.

I am grateful to Susan for taking these images, and sending them to me.

This specimen was small, and quite pale coloured. From the website, it is apparent that some individuals are much larger, and darker in colour.

*****

Yesterday Bernie rang me to say that they had found a pair of Frogmouths roosting in a pine tree in their backyard, in suburban Bowral. Here you can see their typical stance, looking like a couple of broken off tree branches. Photo courtesy of Dorothy Baker.

Here is one of my favourite images, a close-up of a very freshly killed Frogmouth (a road kill) which my brother found near Nowra. You can see the huge beak (from which it gets its name) and the beautifully fine markings, and the hairy feathers above the beak, which help give it its camouflaged look. (You can see these tufts of hairy feathers - sticking out above the beaks of both birds - in the photograph which Dorothy took on her camera).The eye is partly open, in much the way that they use to look at any humans who might be stalking them, when in a tree. The feathers around the eye help keep the strong horizontal lines which help it stay safely disguised, when pretending to be a tree branch.