Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary recently presented its social media followers with an intriguing challenge. The organization, located in Tasmania, Australia, posted a photo of what seemed to be an adorable white fluff ball with a beak and asked if anyone knew what it was.
Surprisingly, the challenge wasn’t as hard as you would expect. Some assumed that it was an owl baby, others were just perplexed by how beautiful it was, but the real Aussies immediately knew that the small bird was actually a Tawny.
This little fellow had an interesting journey, being found on the ground by a passerby. The kind stranger figured the bird had fallen out of its nest but couldn’t find it. So they contacted Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary, hoping they would know what to do.
The Bonorong staff immediately got to business, checking the tawny’s health and feeding it. The sanctuary plans to release the bird, now named Pod, after it grows up a bit and is ready to take care of itself.
The tawny frogmouth is a bird native to Tasmania and some other parts of Australia. Tawnys often get mistaken for owls even when they grow up because they have similar coloring and are nocturnal. However, there are a number of differences between the two. For example, owls have stronger legs and narrower beaks.
