Backyard Zoology · 16 December 2021
2021-12-16T17:23:52+11:00
https://www.facebook.com/backyardzoology/posts/pfbid0AQwBqc4j5AsuRB75QunmnSmzaPyvpZqwUBMWAmeAh5dyvNQDjbNt1emBxYQBvkz7l

You know those dreams, the ones where your brain gets stuck on one particular thing because your body is trying to tell you something? I often have toilet dreams where I'm running into various public toilets, busting to pee, but there's no door, or no actual toilet, or there's a window so that everyone can see me. My body is telling me to wake up while my brain is tumbling through everything trying to firstly, make everything make sense, but secondly and most importantly, making sure that I don't relax enough to actually wet the bed!

This morning I was caught in a series of unsettling dreams. Non sensical things with people's faces dissolving in front of my eyes, sliding down and drooping, and me in a shopping centre as I desperately tried to find a police officer to save me from a bad man. And this one person saying over and over again, very loudly and in a strange mechanical, raspy voice, "Net rag, net rag, net rag". It took a while but I did, eventually wake up. And the voice continued. Right outside my window. WTAF?

Now this was a sound I had never heard before in my life and trust me I hear weird crap around here constantly. But this sound? This was horror movie level of strangeness. As I lay awake in the dark, trying to work out what I was actually hearing, there was suddenly a flurry of wings and I heard "net rag, net rag, net rag" growing quieter as it moved, or was moved further into the yard. I decided against my better judgement and against everything I have learned from watching horror movies to head outside, if only to record the sound to help identify it later. 

 A couple of nights prior I had been standing outside, staring into the blackness watching satellites glide across the sky and hoping instead for meteors when I suddenly heard distressed squealing. It too, like the 'net rag', moved about in the dark until a silhouette of a bird of prey flew past, taking the squealing creature with it. Was it something like that? Maybe a frog or a small lizard, clutched in some raptors claws, crying out in pain and fear?

I took a few steps, my torchlight pointing downwards, hoping not to frighten whatever it was before my curiosity was satisfied. I kicked against some garden tools, and they rattled and crashed noisily in the quiet of the dawn. But still the 'net rag' continued. A few more steps and then another sound started up, close by, different and yet the same. More of a familiar sound but a variation on what I was used to. I slowly swept the torch up and there, almost at head height, was an adult Tawny Frogmouth! And just a touch further away, the source of the mystery sound, a young Tawny, still bearing some baby fluff! 

I quickly said hello and Matt jumped out of bed and the baby actually flew in quite close to him before realising that he was indeed a human and headed back closer to the actual parent, crashing through the foliage as it went. Flying it seems, is hard. But they stayed the day in our tree. Pressed together for the most part, very wary of the Butcher Birds coming and going through the yard, becoming stick like at one point and being super curious of the dogs at other times. And so, after the awful time we had last year with the death of Toni/Tony and the brand new muppet, this has filled me with all the happies! 

So please, if you could all welcome the newest member of the BZ Family, Netrag! ( I couldn't resist! 🤣)

Tawny Frogmouths
Northern Illawarra