South Coast tawny frogmouth chick is in need of a name after hatching 18 days ago

The adorable white tawny frogmouth chick has been the talk of the Far South Coast native animal sanctuary, whose animal keepers were pleasantly surprised to see the chick approach the fledgling stage.

Potoroo Palace currently has three adult tawny frogmouth, two female and a male, and in the past laying eggs hadn't always meant chicks would hatch, according to keeper Demi Granger.

"They've laid eggs for quite a while. At first none were hatching and we didn't think they would, then we had a few hatch but they'd be gone the next day," she said.

Notoriously below-average nest-builders - sometimes just a little pile of sticks on a branch - it's often the case that tawny frogmouth eggs and young can easily fall out.

Being birds of prey it is also not uncommon for parents to eat their young, so needless to say the odds were stacked up against the young tawny, even after it had hatched late last month.

Animal keeper Matt Robinson hadn't liked the chick's chances.

"When we have chicks, generally no-one expects them to last a couple of days or even a week, something always goes wrong.

"They might go missing or die, so this is the longest one we've had and he's out of the woods I think.

"Birds of prey will often eat the young, if there is more than one. They eat the weaker one," he said.

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After reading up on species and getting advice from another animal sanctuary, Potoroo Palace's keepers were able to not only assist in the hatching process, but also keep the chick safe and healthy through its tenuous first weeks.

"We moved some things around, separated one of our other tawnys that wasn't having the baby when we found out the eggs could hatch," Ms Granger said.

"We put him in a separate enclosure and made sure to help feed the parents, and it was successful.

"In captivity we have to assist with feeding, although they have quite a large enclosure.

"We've also put some garden lights around to attract bugs."

Now at 18 days old the chick is eating three times a day and beginning to take its form, while mum and dad take turns looking after it.

"They come out looking like a little cotton ball. It's now starting to look a bit more like a tawny frogmouth.

"The parents take turns of sitting. Dad will sit on during the day and mum during the night."

To celebrate the birth, Potoroo Palace is running a naming competition for the tawny, and Mr Robinson said he will have his work cut out on deciding the winner.

To make the naming more challenging, the keepers still don't know the sex of the new chick and possibly won't for some time.

"We won't know its sex until it gets its adult feathers, and even then it's hard to tell," Ms Grainger said.

"We've kind of got used to naming animals and then finding out that they're a different sex so we don't really care, if the name suits it.

"We have Dennis the swan and we don't know if they're a male or female and we named one of our echidnas Priscilla that ended up being a male."

While the adult frogmouths generally enjoy an insect diet of predominantly moths and spider, advice suggested that the tawny chick would prefer a diet of baby mice, or 'pinkies' as they are more commonly referred to, which the keepers said the chick has been feasting on.

With the fledgling stage just around the corner at 28 days, the baby tawny will soon have to learn to fly and forage for itself within its enclosure, under the watchful eye of its parents.

While still too young for visitors, Potoroo Palace had big plans for the new tawny, as well as a new curlew chick the sanctuary welcomed last year.

"We just cleared one of our enclosures and it's going through a deep clean at the moment.

"We want to put the young curlew in there and the young tawny frogmouth chick when it's big enough to go away from its parents, so that people can easily see it.

"Hopefully we can train them up so that people are able to do an encounter with both," Ms Grainger said.