Superb Lyrebird – The Greatest Mimic
Listen to Examples of Lyrebird Mimicry
It’s difficult to appreciate the accuracy of a Superb Lyrebird’s mimicry if one doesn’t know what the original sounds like. For this reason I’ve setup some audio comparisons which put the original & the mimic side by side.
Australian Bird Sounds
Other bird calls from the Australian bush:
- Bellbird, Crested
- Black Cockatoo, Red-tailed
- Black Cockatoo, Yellow-tailed
- Boobook, Australian
- Bowerbird, Golden
- Bowerbird, Satin
- Bowerbird, Spotted
- Budgerigar
- Butcherbird, Grey
- Butcherbird, Pied
- Catbird, Spotted
- Cassowary, Southern
- Chowchilla
- Cockatiel
- Cockatoo, Palm
- Cuckoo, Channel-billed
- Cuckoo, Fan-tailed
- Currawong, Black
- Currawong, Pied
- Drongo, Spangled
- Emu
- Fairywren, Superb
- Frogmouth, Marbled
- Frogmouth, Papuan
- Frogmouth, Tawny
- Fruit Dove, Wompoo
- Honeyeater, Spiny-cheeked
- Kingfisher, Sacred
- Koel, Pacific
- Kookaburra, Blue-winged
- Kookaburra, Laughing
- Lyrebird, Superb
- Magpie, Australian
- Miner, Bell
- Nightjar, Large-tailed
- Nightjar, Spotted
- Oriole, Green
- Owl, Australian Masked
- Owl, Eastern Barn
- Owl, Powerful
- Owl, Barking
- Owl, Lesser Sooty
- Owl, Greater Sooty
- Owlet-nightjar, Australian
- Parrot, Eclectus
- Pitta, Noisy
- Rosella, Crimson
- Shrikethrush, Grey
- Songlark, Rufous
- Wagtail, Willie
- Whipbird, Eastern
- Whistler, Australian Golden
- Whistler, Rufous
Birdsong of the Australian Bush
Native birdsong from six different habitats in the Australian bush
License Audio
License audio for use in documentaries, film, radio, sound installations and more…
Reports of Other Sounds
There are numerous accounts of wild Superb Lyrebirds imitating the sounds of human activity. One interesting story relates to a population of Lyrebirds in northern New South Wales which incorporate the sounds of a flute into their repertoire. According to http://www.flutelyrebird.com/ the explanation for this is as follows –
“..A lyrebird chick was raised in captivity in the 1920s in Australia’s New England Tablelands, or so the story goes. The bird mimicked the sounds of the household’s flute player, learning two tunes and an ascending scale. When released back into the wild, his flute-like songs and timbre spread throughout the local lyrebird population.”
Have a listen to some of the amazing flute lyrebirds on this page – http://www.flutelyrebird.com/flutelyrebird/Audio.html
There are also reports of lyrebirds imitating steam trains in the Blue Mountains and starter motors in northern NSW, but I have not personally heard recordings of such. Not that I dismiss such accounts, as the lyrebird is clearly capable of it, and if wild birds are incorporating unnatural noises into their vocal repertoires then I’m sure it is only a matter of time before such recordings emerge, as the human noise that is reaching their forest homes is becoming ever more pervasive and relentless.
