Rescuer Responds To Call And Finds 'Weird Timber' Sticking Out Of Fence

Aliya Piper was surprised when she got a call about some injured birds only a minute away from her house. As a licensed wildlife rescuer and carer in South Australia, she travels all over to help animals in need, but it just so happened that this one was basically at her front door. The woman who called in said there was a mama bird and her two babies sitting in the sun on a fence, being circled by larger birds, and she thought the mom might be injured.

Piper walked around the corner to where the fence was and looked for the birds — and at first, she almost missed them.

“[I] couldn't see the birds, just some weird timber attached to the fence,” Piper wrote in a post on Facebook.

Of course, the birds were there — they were just really good at blending in.

The mama bird and her babies were actually tawny frogmouths. These kinds of birds are nocturnal, so during the day, they seek out old, dead trees to sleep in, where they’ll be camouflaged well. Instead, this mom had chosen a wooden fence in broad daylight as her perch, making it seem like something was wrong.

“They were probably just enjoying the sun and mistook the log fence for a tree,” Piper said.

Piper tried to get close to examine the little family, but they all flew to nearby perches out of reach as soon as she approached, confirming that they could all fly normally and were perfectly fine.

“First time I've ever seen wood fly,” Piper said.

Despite the call being a false alarm, Piper was still glad she got to witness the tawny frogmouths and their camouflage skills — even if they were a little confused about where they should be using them.