Aerial athletes and unsung hunters by night, tawny frogmouths are more than just their Muppet looks | Debbie Lustig

Watching one nocturnal family through all of spring, I experienced the exhilarating thrills of their nightly routine – and learned the call of the frogmouths What’s not to love about a Muppet in a long coat with spooky eyes like something out of a Scooby Doo cartoon? Posing as tree stumps on a branch, tawny frogmouths almost parody themselves. But there’s much more to them than that. Frogmouths have another life that few people see: like vampires, they wake at sunset and night-hunt until dawn...

By Debbie Lustig