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Sometimes Nature Comes to You

Vicky Austin

Working with female Superb Lyrebirds is hard. They often live at the bottom of rugged steep gullies and are elusive. Occasionally though, they surprise you. After hours of early morning field work I returned to a car park in suburbia to be greeted by this – a wild female Lyrebird (note the curved tail that indicates she had been sitting in her nest) yelling at her own reflection on a parked car. Female Lyrebirds are thought to be territorial and this is a lovely demonstration of that. From the birds’ perspective she is communicating with another Lyrebird! It also shows the beauty and complexity of her mimetic repertoire – female Lyrebirds are just as accomplished at mimicry as males. This is the kind of interaction no one would have believed had I not recorded it. This was also in the morning – about 7.30am. I can’t help but think that these “elusive” birds come into suburbia more often than we realise. Note: her nest was later discovered on the side of a cliff about 100 meters from the carpark and 200m from the nearest house!