This is birdroot. It's a warm morning in the tropical rainforest. You grab your binoculars

and scan the thick canopy. But you're not spotting any birds. Just lots of green leaves

and a tree stump. Hold up. That tree stump isn't a tree stump at all. It's a bird.

Common potoos are champions of camouflage. In the daytime, these nocturnal creatures

put perfectly still on branches. Heds pointed upward, bodies outstretched, and eyes close

down to tiny slits. With their cryptic coloration of brown, splashes of grey and black spots,

it's hard to tell where the branch ends and the bird's body begins. It's a wondrous

adaptation to avoid predators. They're birds more often heard than seen, with a melodious

but mournful song made at dawn, dusk, and by the light of the moon. The song earned potoos

the name poor me one in Trinidad and Tobago. At dusk, common potoos awaken and take flight.

They use their large yellow orange eyes, long wings and wide mouth to sally from a perch

and gop down flying insects. At the end of the night shift, potoos return to their branches

to hide in plain sight for another day. For bird noot, I'm Joanne Ryan.