Having been off-line for a couple of month, I'm just now catching up
with Birding-Aus by means of Andrew Taylor's fine service, the
Birding-Aus Archive, found at http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/birding-aus/
One of the messages there is as follows:
quote
Tasmanian lyrebirds
Richard Jordan
Thu, 27 Nov 1997 11:03:09 +1100 (EST)
Having been away for quite a while, I was interested in reading all the
postings about lyrebirds. I am particularly keen to look at the
Tasmanian
birds with regard to changes in their vocalisations over time - after
being
transported to a new location.
Does anyone know of a) the history of the translocation b) anyone else
who
would know and c) best locations for finding the birds. Any help would
be
much appreciated.
<snip>
unquote
I do not see any reply. Details are to be found in M. Sharland, "The
Lyrebird in Tasmania", Emu 44 (1944): 64-71; L. Wall & W Wheeler,
"Lyrebirds in Tasmania", Emu 66 (1966): 123-131; P. Rielly, The
Lyrebird: A Natural History, NSW Univ Press, Kensington, 1988, pp.
10-13, 14, 44-45; and L. Smith, The Life of the Lyrebird, William
Heinemann Australia, Richmond, 1988, pp. 111-124.
The following summary of the history of transocation may be of
interest. The translocations took place because it was felt that the
Lyrebirds in the Melbourne area were threatened with extinction by foxes
(Smith page 112).
The first Lyrebirds to be released in Tasmania were a female and a male
brought from Victoria and released in the Mount Field National Park on
28 August 1934. The male was found dead the following day. To quote
from Reilly (page 10) "More were released in subsequent years, a total
of twenty-one adult birds from the mountain ranges near Melbourne,
Victoria: fifteen to Mt. Field National Park up to 1949, and six in the
Hastings Cave Reserve in 1945. These two areas are 90 km apart and
separated by largely uninhabited mountainous country. The birds have
survived and have expanded their range in both places. By 1987, they
had been recorded up to 35km away: north-north-west from Hastings Cave;
north, west and south from Mt. Field. A distance of little more than
20km now separates the extreme sightings between the two places of
release and it seems likely that the two populations will eventually be
linked together."
The literature contains information about vocalization in the Tasmanian
Lyrebirds. Essentially the story is that the populations of Victorian
birds, in later generations, demonstrated within their repertoire of
mimicry both the calls of birds found in Victoria but not in Tasmania
(such as Eastern Whipbirds) and Tasmanian models (such as Green
Rosellas) not found in Victoria. This demonstrates that they learn
their mimicry both from other Lyrebirds and from the broader
environment. Contrary to earlier posts to this list, I understand that,
with the passage of time, the Tasmanian birds have now lost the calls of
the Victorian birds not found in Tasmania (source: Peter Fullagar). It
would be good if list members could confirm this with details and also
respond to Richard's request for information about finding the Tasmanian
Lyrebirds nowadays. (Note that Smith gives details including a map of
where he saw the birds in Tasmania 1980, and discusses their dispersal
from the release sites.)
David McDonald
--
_______________________________________________________
David McDonald
PO Box 1355, Woden ACT 2606, Australia
Tel: +61 2 6231 8904 (h); +61 2 6249 5618 (w)
Fax: +61 2 6249 0740
E-mail:
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