I’ve always been fascinated by animals from other countries. The first time I went to a zoo in Germany, I was absolutely mouth agape the entire time. Living in the U.S., you get used to the usual cast of characters: squirrels racing through their chaotic ‘to-do’ list, raccoons digging through dumpsters and earning their “trash panda” moniker, and on and on. When I came face to face with something called a Marderhund? Yeah, it awakened a lifelong fascination in me.
So when my best friend sent me this video of a ‘Tawny Frogmouth,’ I perked right up. What’s this? A taxidermied log? A discarded Muppet prototype? A Pokemon evolution that got scrapped at the last minute? Behold, the bizarre, unbothered glory of a bird that looks like they’re constantly judging you:
@ivan_carter The Tawny Frog-Mouth is family of the Nightjar – native to Australia, absolutely wonderful birds! 🦅🙌🏻
Native to Australia, the tawny frogmouth is part of the nightjar family. Their camouflage skills are absurdly good. They can turn themselves into a tree branch with alarming ease, just hanging out until dinner (insects, snakes, slugs, birds, whatever) wanders by. They’re monogamous, raise chicks together, and spend their nights fully alert while the rest of the world sleeps.
Related: Pair of Adorable Rescue Bats Enjoying Snack Time Is the Best Thing We’ve Seen All Week
They look like they coffee, stat. It looks like burnout in bird form. This bird is the living, breathing embodiment of being absolutely done with everything! TikTok is obsessed.
One user nailed it, ‘He’s doing the Gen Z stare.” Another added, ‘you can’t tell me that thing is alive’ while one remarked, ‘I thought it was a statue.’
‘It looks zoned out’, ‘He doesn’t trust anything’, and ‘He doesn’t know he’s alive,’ were some of the other comments added.
Let’s let the bird be weird. There’s something innately beautiful about that. Sometimes, you don’t need to sparkle. Sometimes, you just sit there with your thousand-yard stare, like a muppet who’s seen too much.