Call of the Liar
Down in a gully, beneath a canopy of tree ferns and towering mountain ash, I hear the echoing clacks and undulating whistles I’ve been searching for. It’s taken a leech bite, a few thwacks to the face by branches, and a plunge into shin-deep mud on this crisp day in late May, but at last I’ve encountered Australia’s superb lyrebird.
The creature is brown and pheasant-sized, and it sings and dances atop a scratched-up mound of dirt. I can tell by its lyre-shaped plume that the bird is a male. His shivering silver and brown tail feathers spread and fold over his face.
Superb lyrebirds are world famous for their near-perfect imitations. Human admirers come from far and wide to hear them here in Sherbrooke Forest, just outside of Melbourne, on the custodial lands of the Wurundjeri people. One man from Melbourne was so obsessed with observing the species that he opted to live part-time in the forest within a massive hollowed-out
