We quite often hear the Albert’s lyrebirds during their breeding season (winter) in both Border Ranges National Park and Lamington National Park but see them more rarely so were excited to  see two of them yesterday near Brindle Creek in Border Ranges NP.  Unfortunately the view was too brief for photography.

Lyrebirds are confined to Australia, and are out largest passerines (songbirds).  The males are quite possibly the world’s greatest mimics, and also do an impressive dance to attract the female, bringing  their lyre-like tail over their heads and shimmering it like a water fountain.  They also show some primitive characteristics that provide one of the arguments for the Australian section of Gondwana being the birthplace of the passerines.

The superb lyrebird is found from southeast Queensland down to Victoria, but the Albert’s is confined to the wetter rainforests and tall moist eucalypt forests of the southeast Queensland / northeast New South Wales border regions, as far south as Evans Head (south of Ballina) and north to Tamborine Mountain (south of Brisbane). It is regarded as vulnerable, and threatened by habitat changes and feral predators in much of its range, but hopefully will have a long future in the extensive protected forests of the Border Ranges