Hi Vicki,
RSB's are *thought* to have a suite of bird calls (and possibly other
sounds) that they can imitate "lyrebird like" but all agree, not nearly
to the same extent as lyrebirds. Part of our project could incidentally
discover if their reputation for mimickry is true, still unproven or
even an "urban myth" - but this will involve us being able to
distinguish the real call from the same mimicked call. But they are rare
and endangered (by land clearing and now global warming), with sparse
fragmented populations living in temperate rainforests at the 600m to
1000m level on rangetops in Eastern Australia eg Lamington NP and now
Barrington Tops and Gloucester Tops NPs. At one time they were thought
to be nearly extinct. There seems to be very slightly larger numbers of
them recently but not a lot is know about their present numbers,
distribution and the details of their life, and hence our research
project. Their own calls are extremely loud, almost deafening at close
range, but because of the dense groundcover in which they live they are
very rarely seen even when only metres away.
In most bird field guides they are grouped with Lyrebirds or close by.
Ian
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