A male lyrebird in his prime might weave more than twenty unique sound-bites from the calls of a dozen or so local bird species into his vocal performance. Although he will undoubtedly have his favourites, like the whipcrack territorial calls of eastern whipbirds, the in-flight contact calls of yellow-tailed cockatoo, Australian logrunner alarm calls and the yowling song of green catbirds, there is a clear tendency towards mastering calls that, when strung together in a continuous outpouring, suitably demonstrate a diverse complexity of sound qualities.
Both of these recordings are from a male superb lyrebird behind my house (a single bird) in the upper Bellinger River valley during late Autumn. If you’re keen for a bird language challenge, try to make a list of all the birds he is mimicking. I have just done my own list for each recording. By my reckoning, in the first recording he makes at least 20 distinctly separate soundbites, consisting of 7 species (some repeated 4 times with unique variations) and his own native songs.
Remember, EVERY call you hear is coming from a single lyrebird! Send me your list of calls, in order of appearance and we can compare! Try to name each species and type of call (i.e., the first call mimicked is a pied currawong’s aerial alarm and bill clicking, while the second call is the territorial whipcrack of an eastern whipbird).