Fareed Mohmed ← The Indian List

Bird Photography · The Indian List

Frogmouths

1 of 2 species photographed

Only two species make the Indian list, and both are hard-won sightings — nocturnal, cryptically patterned, and built to disappear against bark and dead leaves by day. A frogmouth's defining feature is the bill: broad, flattened and hooked, framed by bristles, built for taking large insects in a wide gape rather than picking at them one at a time. By day the birds sit bolt upright on a low branch, bill tilted up, eyes narrowed to slits, and rely entirely on looking like a broken stub of wood.

2Species in India
1Photographed
Broad hooked billThe family mark
By day, motionlessHow they're found
NocturnalWhen they're active

The species

Sri Lanka Frogmouth

Batrachostomus moniliger3 frames
Status
Resident
Range
The Western Ghats and hill forests of southern India, and Sri Lanka
Habitat
Dense evergreen and semi-evergreen forest, usually in the understorey
IUCN
Least Concern

A pair often roosts side by side on a low branch through the day, and the sexes are easy to tell apart at rest — the male a warm rufous-brown, the female greyer and more finely mottled, both patterned to match dead leaves and lichen-covered bark. The eyes are enormous and dark, the bill broad and pale with a hooked tip. Motionless in daylight, the birds are almost always found by a fixed daytime roost known to local guides rather than by searching cold, and they become active only after dark, hunting large insects by sallying from a perch.

FM0029
Feb 2020Thattekad Bird Sanctuary, Ernakulam, KeralaPair roosting side by side, rufous male and grey female.

Photographs by Fareed Mohmed