Lyrebirds | Menuridae

Lierstaarten | Aves lira

The lyrebird's syrinx, with three pairs of muscles, is the most simply built of any songbird's, and yet out of it comes the most exact mimicry known in birds: the songbird repertoire of the whole forest, down to a flock's alarm and the clatter of wings, run one after another and recognisable species by species. A male sings in winter, for hours, from an earth mound he has raked up with his feet and on which he throws his tail forward over his back. The female builds alone: a domed nest with a side entrance, of sticks and moss, usually low down or on the ground. One egg is laid and incubated for about fifty days, the longest of any songbird, and the young bird then stays with its mother for months. In scratching for food a lyrebird turns the forest floor over; a single bird shifts tonnes of soil and leaf litter in a year.