Aussie property owner's moment of 'terror' after discovery on trail camera

Yahoo

16-06-2025

A disturbing moment captured on a trail camera highlights the constant danger Australia's native creatures face from invasive predators. Footage taken just minutes apart shows a European red fox stalking a superb lyrebird at a five-hectare property in the foothills of the Victorian Alps.
The man who set up the camera, Henry During, revealed that seeing the fox skulk into the frame made his stomach sink. 'I thought, here we go, more terror to be had on the property,' he told Yahoo News.
The fox can be seen wandering between logs at 8.23am, then at 8.38 the lyrebird wanders into frame. Just one minute later the lyrebird has gone, and the fox sniffs the air in its direction.
'It's pretty hard, you can't really stop them. You get rid of one, and another just turns up.' During said.
Two-thirds of During's property has been kept as bushland. The land is adjacent to a sprawling state forest that's home to a colourful array of wild animals and birds, but also feral deer, cats and foxes.
While During sees the odd possum slaughtered by foxes, he's yet to see any evidence that they've killed a lyrebird. And there's good reason for this.
La Trobe University ecologist Dr Alex Maisey specialises in superb lyrebird behaviour and has found it's uncommon for the species to be taken by foxes because of their intelligence and physical ability.
'What they typically do is jump up into a tree and scream with a high pitch,' he told Yahoo. 'Then 10 minutes later they're back on the ground feeding and you think, So you're pretty confident the fox isn't going to come back. But I think the fox probably knows its been spotted and it's not worth continuing the hunt.'
The lyrebird's advanced abilities are evidenced in the male's song. Not only does it learn from the environment around it, but the birds also pass on sounds from one generation to the next.
Lyrebirds were brought to Tasmania in the 1930s and 1940s, and although there aren't any whip birds in the island state, they continue to reference their sound. Similarly, pilotbirds have vanished from Victoria's Sherbrooke Forest, east of Melbourne, and yet their sounds are still heard in the song of male lyrebirds.
It's when the females are nesting on their mound for six weeks of incubation, and then three weeks of brooding the chick, that they're at a higher risk of predation from foxes.
'It's not uncommon to find female feathers around nests where there's been a predation,' Maisey said.
'And the problem for our lyrebirds is if they nest up in a tree fork or hollow, our native birds of prey are really good at finding the nests and they'll eat all the eggs. They'll probably do up to 1,000 trips up into the tree, which is a big energy expenditure but it often doesn't pay off.'
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Australian birds naturally work together to warn each other of threats including cats, foxes, snakes and goannas. Sometimes fearless species like noisy miners will even flock together to feign attack, driving them away.
Warning calls are usually high-pitched and understood by multiple species. Yellow robins and scrub wrens are known for making particularly 'harsh' alarm calls.
'There's a whole forest-wide alarm system. They all listen to other birds and react,' he said.
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