08/07/2026
My own little adventure…..
Half way up Pauls Range, the line of hills that backs Wombat Bend, there is a lyrebird.
I know this because I have seen him.
For weeks lately, I’ve heard his incredible notes like faery pipes floating down from high up in the forest, fluting through the silent early morning mist. I know he is staking his territory with continuous patrolling, and protecting his partner as she sits on their single egg. She’ll be tucked deep inside the large woven nest they build, hidden from view among ferns, shrubbery and forest dimness.
There is a distinctive quality to the lyrebird’s voice, which is known for extraordinary mimicry of other birds …. and sometimes even human-made sounds. There are stories of piano and violin riffs, and more prosaically, crosscut saw and hammering sounds; one can well imagine early settlers in Gippsland forests being the origins of such sounds and stories.
Finally, knowing my time was running out to find him, I set my alarm for predawn. It was cold. Very cold. My bed was warm. Do I …. ?
Bravely ….
It was still dark, but the barest glimmer of light was emerging through the trees. I knew the point at the foot of the forest where I should start my climb. Up and up, following an occasional wallaby path, I made my way through the dry woodland, all the time listening for his call to guide me. Every so often, his ‘click click’ and a currawong-rosella-black cockatoo-whipbird riff told me he was concentrating on his job, and all I had to do was keep going up.
The forest floor was soft from the recent rains, and my footfalls were as silent as I could manage. Half an hour of steady climbing, crossing a gully, always upwardly moving through head-high shrubbery, across a stretch of broken and fallen timber and into another gully; every so often, stopping to orientate my direction with his voice.
Almost at the point where he was just twenty metres ahead of me, and still singing, I struck a really steep section that needed hands and knees; I flattened myself against the rubble and said a little prayer that he wouldn’t hear my scrambling on the rocks. Suddenly a currawong landed just above me, curious about this ‘thing’ on the ground; another joined him, and then a third, all of them peering intently …. and I was sure they’d sound an alarm and all would be lost. I held my breath and they held their peace.
By now it was full light, but still misty and quiet. He called again, a mix of yellow robin/grey fantail/crimson rosella song, and a burst of yellow-tailed black cockatoo, a few clickclickclicks and a grey thrush and a kookaburra all in a rush, a performance of song that had me still holding my breath. And there he was, high on a branch, not dancing but singing his heart out, telling the world that this …. this is his world, and none shall enter.
I had no hope of finding their nest, and wasn’t about to try. Instead, I crouched out of sight and just listened to his glorious symphony echoing across the range, and down through the forest all the way to Wombat Bend.
I know he is there. I know this because I have heard him and I have seen him.
And it was so worth leaving that warm bed.
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Image: Superb Lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae) photographer: Philip Dubbin
https://australian.museum/learn/animals/birds/superb-lyrebird/
And David Attenborough’s own take on the Lyrebird : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSB71jNq-yQ
