3. Tidbinbilla studies

Seeking song of chainsaws and coughs

Folk lore with Ian Warden

Out in a remote place in the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve there is a sophisticated tape recorder in a box always listening (and being checked once a week) for the unmistakable calls of a bird famous for its perfect mimicry. The Superb Lyrebird imitates everything from the songs of other birds to chainsaws to factory whistles to the smokers' coughs of ornithologists that are watching it.

Peter Fullagar of Chifley, a retired CSIRO scientist, is one of three ornithological "detectives" looking for signs of lyrebirds at Tidbinbilla after the fires of January 18. Systematic research done in the 1960s and including lots of recordings of lyrebirds' calls found the valley especially blessed with them. In a normal June and July with the males going about their displays and courtships (they build mounds and give most of their virtuoso performances while standing on them) the valley would be alive with the sound of male lyrebirds yodelling their strange, zany calls in which up to 90 per cent of the emissions are mimicry, mostly of other birds. This winter, though, those sorts of places, of course badly burned, are eerily quiet.

"Normally at this time of the year," Mr Fullagar says, "and with a well established population you'll find mounds everywhere and beginning in June and in Tidbinbilla typically you'd find lyrebird song all day long. They'd sing from first light in the morning till last light at night. But there's not a trace of lyrebird song at the moment."

But there are some lyrebirds there, occasionally seen by rangers.

"Some lyrebirds may well be just simply working up and down various creeks just finding a living. Just surviving."

Mr Fullagar begins to feel sure that they're not going to hear any display and courtship calling this season because the lyrebirds are too preoccupied with sheer survival to have time for the busy foolishness of courtship and mating.

But this is what's making this season's investigations so crucial. In a project that could go on to last for 10 or more years this seasons deathly quiet beginning, a kind of clean slate, will help the measurement of how, nature permitting, the valley's lyrebirds slowly (lyrebirds are very long lived and they only lay one egg a year) rebuild their numbers.

One of the excitements of the project is going to be the discovery of whether or not the valley's re established lyrebirds change the contents of their calls. Of course they can only imitate what they hear of other birds and even of coughing ornithologists. The songs they used to make are in the archives, awaiting comparison with what calls are going to be made in the future.

"What will be the nature of the songs of the lyrebirds when they're re-stablished in the valley? Mr Fullagar wonders.

“Will it be exactly like it was before or will it be changed in some ways perhaps because the birds are not descendants of the original birds but have come in from [elsewhere] and have perhaps brought with them culturally the songs that they know [from somewhere else]? Or perhaps the calls will be structured around the redevelopment of the new acoustic environment of Tidbinbilla?"

For example, he explains, in all of the recordings so far done of the lyrebirds of the valley you never, ever hear them imitating the call of the whipbird even though lyrebirds that live within earshot of whipbirds leap at the chance of imitating that species' exciting whipcrack.

"And of course," Mr Fullagar enthuses (lyrebirds are so fascinating that even serious ornithologists become quite boyish when talking about them) "the reason for that was that whipbirds don't occur in the valley. When there are whipbirds around the lyrebirds will tell you that because they love doing whipbirds. And if they're not doing it in the valley it means that they [the lyrebirds] don't know about it. If they've been told about it they'll be sure to do it!"

In recent years studies have found the whipbirds edging closer and closer to the valley. Might it be one of the outcomes of the turmoil of the fires and part of the new acoustic environment that the lyrebirds will be able to add a loud whipcrack to their repertoires? The tape recorder in its box, all ears 24 hours a day seven days a week, will be listening for just that sort of thing.

The Canberra Times (page 6), Tuesday, July 22, 2003 [OCR text transcription July 22, 2003 by PJF using OmniPage LE and Adobe Photoshop]

Ornithological “detective” Peter Fullagar with lyrebird’s feather. Picture: LANNON HARLEY