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Hi all,
I have often wondered where Lyrebirds shelter from
bushfires. An obvious method would be ducking down a wombat burrow. I
have heard of them entering mine adits or standing in a creek and ignoring
humans and other animals doing the same in both cases. Those of you who get
'Wingspan' or 'Emu' would have seen the following but I thought it was
worth repeating for those who don't.
The article is in Wingspan / March 2008 about a
Lyrebird sharing a blanket with someone during a bushfire:- "a man was
sheltering from the flames of a bushfire by lying beneath a blanket in a
creek when he felt someone crawl under the blanket with him. When the flames had
passed, he turned to speak to his companion, and to his amazement and
pleasure, he found his guest was a Lyre-bird"
Unfortunately severe bushfires burn the litter down
to mineral earth leaving nowhere to forage for Lyrebirds and mary starve after
having survived a bushfire. I came across 3 lyrebird carcasses after the '03
bushfire in the ACT while doing vegetation and vertebrate surveys.
Peter
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