'Garbage guts' tree frog catches and eats sunbird

Townsville gardener witnesses 'garbage guts' tree frog preying on sunbird Wed 15 Jul 2026 at 12:02pm In short: Brigitte Szabo was watering her garden when she witnessed a white-lipped tree frog catch a sunbird mid-flight. She took photographs of the frog eating the bird. What's next? Frog experts encourage people to "document"' any frogs they come across and submit pictures and recordings to citizen scientist databases. Brigitte Szabo was watering her garden at her Townsville home when some movement caught her eye. "A pair of sunbirds were flying around and chirping and carrying on as they do and then all of a sudden this great big green frog launched itself," Ms Szabo said. It was an unexpectedly brutal display of a predator and prey in action, right there in her garden. "It grabbed the bird mid-air and landed on top of a leaf and proceeded to — I suppose eat him," she said. "I was just astounded. I've seen frogs with geckos and lizards and things like that but it was an actual bird. He was a real predator, this frog." 'Garbage guts' of the wild Jodi Rowley, curator of amphibian and reptile conservation biology at the Australian Museum, said most frogs did not eat birds. But Dr Rowley says some of the larger types, such as the green tree frog and the white-lipped tree frog, will try to eat just about "anything that moves" if it comes close enough. "They are a little bit garbage guts," she said. "They're all about reflexes; so something that is around and close to their face, if they're hungry, they'll give it a go." Dr Rowley said often a frog might manage to catch something large but after trying to swallow it, would have to give up and spit it out. She said frogs were cold-blooded so something large, like a bird or snake, would take some time to digest. "They'd just bunker down and try to basically invest all of their energy and blood flow into digesting that meal," she said. While it was rare for a frog to eat a bird, Dr Rowley said she had seen photos of them eating snakes, large lizards and other reptiles. "I've even seen bats being shoved in the mouth of frogs. It's probably not that common, so it is really cool to see," she said. "I have spent my life searching for frogs and looking at frogs and I have seen probably tens of thousands of frogs and I have never seen a frog eat a bird or something that big." Also in Townsville, Keeliah O'Keefe witnessed her own rare moment of frog-on-bird violence on her verandah. When she saw Ms Szabo's picture on social media, she shared her own picture of a green tree frog with a finch in its mouth. She said she heard strange noises at her door some years ago, and found a frog grabbing a small bird she believed was a double-barred finch. "If you didn't see it yourself or take a photo of it, nobody would have believed you," she said. Ms O'Keefe said she felt bad for the bird and "intervened". "I ended up flicking the frog and he let him go," she said. Many frogs threatened Dr Rowley said she would encourage members of the community to look after frog habitats in their own gardens. "They generally spend their time eating invertebrates, which can be pest species, and they compete with mosquitoes to keep them down so they are a really important part of the environment." She said home owners should be wary of pesticides they use, keep cats indoors and even do some research on how to make their gardens "frog friendly". Dr Rowley said people could submit photos of frogs to citizen scientist apps such as iNaturalist and provide audio recordings of frog mating calls to the FrogID app. "It helps us get a better understanding of how our frogs are doing and how we can make sure we don't lose any more frog species because a lot of them are threatened with extinction," she said.