Albert's Lyrebird

Albert's lyrebird (Menura alberti) is a timid, pheasant-sized songbird found only in the subtropical rainforests and wet forests on the border of New South Wales and Queensland in eastern Australia. It is the rarer of the two living lyrebird species and is named for Prince Albert, the consort of Queen Victoria, by the English ornithologist John Gould. Adults are chestnut-brown with rufous markings on the throat, rump and undertail; females reach about 75 cm in length and males about 90 cm, weighing roughly 930 g. The male lacks the lyre-shaped outer tail feathers of the superb lyrebird but has a long, filmy tail that he raises over his body in display on a cleared patch of ground. Like its relative it is a powerful mimic, though it copies a narrower range of species. It forages on the forest floor for insects, their larvae and other soil invertebrates. Its range has shrunk since European settlement, the population was estimated at about 3,500 breeding birds in 2000, and it is threatened by habitat clearing, weeds, introduced predators and fire.