The weather has been wet and cold. Some of our wild families have been struggling, especially the young.
We have had many tawny frogmouths come in and most have not been able to return to their families for various reasons. We almost gave up trying to reunite the last chick with their family but this morning at 5am a parent was seen on camera snuggled up to their missing chick and feeding them!
This chick was noticed by a local person Tegan who called to find out if it was normal for a chick to just be sitting on the fence. Everything was part of normal development but then we had a few days of intense cold and hard hail. Tegan came home to find the chick saturated and shivering on the ground. They warmed the baby up and we took them into care for a two nights until the weather improved and made sure the chick was well hydrated and fed before trying to reunite with their parents.
Our volunteers Angela and Chris helped Tegan select a good tree and made a makeshift nest, not that a chick this age would still be in a nest but just for comfort. Tegan set up the security cameras on the nest and along with a neighbour they feed the chick regularly throughout the day while waiting for mum and dad to turn up. First night no sign of them. Second night we moved the chick to a more open tree and a cat was seen on the camera and the chick was found freaked out down an embankment but thankfully fine.
I was ready to take them back into care at this point but Tegan wanted to try one more night and thankfully we did. Success!
Thank you so much Tegan for rescuing and reuniting, their neighbour for assisting with feeding, Leah for assisting looking after tawny chick while in care at Amaroo and Ange and Chris for transporting and nest building...