A cool-temperate morning in Sherbrooke Forest, beneath the mountain ash and southern sassafras. Follow the stream. Listen for mimicry. Six superb lyrebirds forage somewhere in the fern gullies.
All six lyrebirds are found, and none of them are kept. The whip-cracks and rosella chatter you followed were only borrowed voices, returned now to their owners. The stream goes on rehearsing its one soft argument with the stones, and wins it, as it always does. Glow-worms are lighting their small lanterns in the fern gully. Nothing here was ever lost — only quiet, and patient, and very good at hiding. Walk home slowly, and leave the songs where they live.