Philippine Deforestation

Philippine Frogmouth
Batrachostomus septimus

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©2002 (Photograph by P. Heideman)

A Philippine frogmouth protests its capture in a net. They are adaptable animals, feeding on large insects such as cicadas and crickets.

The Philippine frogmouth (Batrachostomus septimus) is perhaps the least typical bird in the Philippines, from its perpetually grumpy appearance to its way of making a living. But such idiosyncrasy is a large part of what makes the overall diversity of birds possible.
Frogmouths are nocturnal, like owls, which probably accounts for their large eyes. They catch their prey by sitting on a limb and waiting until they see a moving insect on a branch or the ground, and then they pounce. Grasshoppers, cicadas, crickets, and beetles are snapped up eagerly into the large bill and capacious mouth. The nest, built on a horizontal branch two to five meters above the ground, is unusually simple but unique, made of downy feathers that the parents pluck from themselves and hold in place with a layer of spider webs, moss, and lichens. There they lay a single egg per season, which the male incubates during the day and the female at night.
These birds are probably common in lowland forest and maturing second growth, but because they are active at night and apparently make no calls and sing no songs, they are inconspicuous and very poorly known. This species is unique to the Philippines, but may be found throughout the Archipelago. A few related species occur from India to Australia.

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