It’s summer in the North and we’re on holiday! So for today’s show, we replay one of our favorite Field Notes episodes, featuring field recordings of the superb lyrebird, an Australian songbird known for its elaborate vocal displays and mimicry of other species’ songs.

Almost exactly one year ago, on August 21, 2018, we first ran this conversation I had with Anastasia Dalziell, an ornithologist who has studied the superb lyrebird extensively. Male superb lyrebirds are extravagantly colored and feathered creatures who clear patches of forest floor to prepare themselves a sort of stage on which they dance and sing their complex songs in order to attract a mate. The birds’ repertoire doesn’t only include originals, however — sometimes they like to show off by mimicking the songs of other species so convincingly that even members of that species are fooled.

Female superb lyrebirds are also known to sing songs and to make calls that capably mimic other species as well as sounds from their environment, such as the creaking of trees blowing in the wind. Even the clicks of camera shutters and the buzz of chainsaws are ‘replayed’ by these animals.

When we spoke, Anastasia Dalziell and I discussed a study she had just published detailing her findings on the vocal mimicry of male superb lyrebirds and the dances the birds use to accompany specific songs. She also discussed a previous study of hers looking at the mimetic vocal displays of female superb lyrebirds, which she said “highlights the hidden complexity of female vocalizations” in songbirds. And she played a number of lyrebird recordings so you can hear the mimicry for yourself.

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