It is a Tawny throated frogmouth. And though it hoots like an owl, is nocturnal like and owl, and sort of looks like an owl, it has weak talons and, therefore is not an owl.
Caleb and I were walking back from the beach on the trail to our house in the middle of the day when we saw three of them sitting on a tree not three yards away from us (This is not a picture of the ones we saw.) Two were just furry fledglings that blinked at us with wide tawny colored eyes. They must have had their days and night's mixed up, and I felt immediate sympathy for the adult birds. The adult was sleeping and blended in almost perfectly, but not nearly as well as the fourth bird that I'd mistaken for part of the tree. I had been looking at them for five minutes or so, when Caleb finally convinced me that there were actually four.
It is amazing what lives down at the end of our street.
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