The Big Lyrebird

Cann River was in the middle of the 2019–20 Black Summer fires. The far east of Victoria burned on a scale that is difficult to convey – enormous continuous areas of forest, communities isolated for weeks, evacuations by sea from Mallacoota down the coast – and Cann River sits in the heart of that country on the Princes Highway between Orbost and the New South Wales border.

The lyrebird is the right bird for a recovery project, and pointedly so. Superb lyrebirds are forest floor specialists that rake through leaf litter, and research after major fires has shown their raking measurably changes how burnt forest recovers. They are also the greatest mimics in the world, reproducing the calls of every other species around them – and, in burnt country, the sounds of the machinery that came afterwards.

A community that has been through a fire choosing the bird that both survives fire and rebuilds the forest floor is making a considered statement.

The record carries an honest practical note: council planning material records no vehicle provision on the subject land, so no arrival point has been invented for this entry.

Nothing is recorded of the hand behind it or the height.