#227 Superb Lyrebird at Grant's Picnic Ground, Sherbrooke Forest, Victoria, September 19

I was super excited to get my first ever photo of a Superb Lyrebird today. Sure, it's a piece of crap photo, but I don't care. You can clearly tell what it is, which is quite a feat considering it was behind a thicket of scrub!!

A few months ago, my wife and I planned to take our children to Grant's Picnic Ground because we had never been there before and it looked nice. But when the day arrived we wife had gotten sick, so we postponed. Then we planned to go there another time a few weeks later because we had a spare day on the weekend (a rare thing for us), but on that day it was raining. So I made getting there a bit of a priority for these school holidays (I'm a teacher) and today we actually made it!

My wife and children enjoyed feeding the extremely tame Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, even though one of them bit my two-year-old daughter - no blood, just a small peck, but she did not like it! Then we went for a brief walk before setting up a picnic lunch. After eating, I spent some time trying to get a reasonable photo of a juvenile Crimson Rosella while the kids ran around and played. Then it was time to go, so we all got in the car and that was that. Or was it?

I noticed that the road from the car park continued down for a bit more, so I asked my wife if we could drive down and see what was there. As we got to the end I heard the distinctive call of a Superb Lyrebird, and it sounded quite close. My wife parked the car as I leaped out and headed towards the calling bird. After battling my way through about 100m of thick scrub, I found myself only a few metres from a male lyrebird, and he was calling loudly. But all I could see was his tail poking out of the bushes. I tried to move to a better vantage point, but he saw me and made a run for it. I kept my eye on him and slowly began to creep closer. I got quite close again, and I could clearly make out his shape from gaps between the bushes, but unfortunately I couldn't get a clear shot. Then he saw me again, and took off, but this time he really took off and I lost sight of him. I was lucky to get any sort of photo at all, and I was extremely pleased to get the one that I did that clearly shows the bird.

I have seen quite a few lyrebirds before as they bolt across a road or scurry away through the bush, and heard many, many more, but this is a photographic lifer for me, and I couldn't be happier!

#227 Superb Lyrebird