Juniper MX Series

Colophon

The animal on the cover of Juniper MX Series is the tawny-shouldered podargus (Podargus humeralis), a type of bird found throughout the Australian mainland, Tasmania, and southern New Guinea. These birds are often mistaken for owls and have yellow eyes and a wide beak topped with a tuft of bristly feathers. They make loud clacking sounds with their beaks and emit a reverberating, booming call.

These birds hunt at night and spend the day roosting on a dead log or tree branch close to the tree trunk. Their camouflage is excellent—staying very still and upright, they look just like part of the branch. The tawny-shouldered podargus is almost exclusively insectivorous, feeding rarely on frogs and other small prey. They catch their prey with their beaks rather than with their talons, and sometimes drop from their perch onto the prey on the ground. The bird's large eyes and excellent hearing aid in nocturnal hunting.

Tawny-shouldered podargus pairs stay together until one of the pair dies. After mating, the female lays two or three eggs onto a lining of green leaves in the nest. Both male and female take turns sitting on the eggs to incubate them until they hatch about 25 days later, and both parents help feed the chicks.

The cover image is from Wood’s Animate Creation. The cover font is Adobe ITC Garamond. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont’s TheSansMonoCondensed.