Lyre Bird the Superb Mocker

Lyrebird was not only one of Australia’s best-known native birds but also one of the world’s talented birds. It is most notable for their superb ability to mimic natural and artificial sounds from their environment. Their ability to mimic sounds can fool even the most experienced bird watchers with a number of bird calls and cries that they can imitate. But aside of their extraordinary mimicking ability, lyrebirds were also noted because of their striking beauty with unique plumes of neutral colored tailfeathers and courtship display. On winter, Male lyre birds construct and maintain an opera-mound in dense bush for them to sing and dance in courtship. It is only during courtship that male lyre birds spread their huge tail for fanned out display. Female birds were considered sole parent and carer of the chick, who lays a single egg and incubates it for over 50 days til it hatch. They were known to be ground dwellers which fed on insects, spiders and occassionally on seeds by scratching on leaf-litter. Being awkward in flight they usually run in case of danger.  So called Lyre birds because of its spectacular tail consisting sixteen highly modified feathers of which two long slender lyrates at the center of the plume, two broader medians on the outside edges and twelve filamentaries arrayed between them can be seen which was originally thought to resemble a lyre

Their call is a rich mixture of its own song and a number of sounds they mimic from their environment. The bird’s syrinx is the most complexly-muscled of the Songbirds giving them the extraordinary ability, unmatched in vocal repertoire and mimicry. They mimic other animals, machinery of all kinds, explosions, human noises and even musical instruments, from whistles to chainsaws, car engines, alarms, camera shutters, crying babies, barking dogs and most of all human voices. They were also noted to carry out two notes at the same time.

For its classification, lyre birds have been classified in their own family the MENURIDAE which contains a single genus the Menura. Once seriously threatened by habitat destruction it is now classified as common. Lyre birds were ancient Australian animals with their fossils in the Australian Museum dating back to abou 15 million years ago. Their prehistoric counterpart the Menura tyawanoides has been described from Early Miocene Fossils. They have been featured as symbol and emblem of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. Found also in the reverse Australian 10 cent coin, 100 dollar note, Australian Film Commission