A frogmouth is a tropical nocturnal bird related to the nightjar. They're active at night, when they hunt insects using their large gaping mouths to scoop them up. It was during the night that we ventured into the Thattekad forest to try and find one of the smallest and most elusive of the frogmouths - the Sri Lanka Frogmouth (Batrachostomus moniliger), endemic to South India and Sri Lanka. The only way to find one is to follow their distinctive calls - a loud descending cackly and frog-like series of 'Klock-klock-klock-klock-klock' calls (often described as sounding like rattling pebbles) the females call in response with a low long shrill 'Krrshhhh'.
The next day, with the help of local expert Eldos (who is a legend when it comes to finding birds), we found a roosting pair. They were barely visible amongst the leaves and even though we spotted them, filmed them and photographed them, they seemed pretty confident in their ability to hide and just gave us the occasional perplexed look. I was even able to interview Eldos, while we were in the company of these roosting frogmouths, they remained nonchalant about the situation!
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