Sherbrooke Forest and a Lyre bird sighting

Yesterday we went to Sherbrooke forest in the Dandenong Ranges NP, its an English persons dream, especially if that English person is in need dire need of cream teas, which can happen if one has been travelling far and wide on the dusty red earth under a scorching sun or working on a farm say with hundreds of flies trying to land on ones face.

There is a parrot feeding area at the picnic area, $4 gets you a bag of seed and a tray to feed the birds that will land on peoples heads, arms, whatever they can and then squawk at each other if another bird try's to land on their tray. We watched some people feed the cockatiels and then 4 buses of Asian tourists arrived and most of them piled into the feeding area with their seed trays but after a few minutes all the birds flew away and sat at a safe distance in the trees because there were too many people now.

 

After watching the bird feeding we went for a walk:

Eastern Sherbrooke Forest Walk

7.1km, 2 hour loop. Grade: Moderate to Difficult
This is a round trip starting and finishing at Grants Picnic Ground. The route follows Lyrebird walk, then Neumann Track, passing through cleared areas of bush created by the successive wildfires of the early 1900s. At Paddy Track junction follow the track downhill before climbing Welch Track and following Coles Ridge Track back to the picnic ground. Most of the walk is through Mountain Ash and Messmate Stringybark forest. There are steep sections on Paddy and Welch Track which may be slippery when wet.

 

 

We didn't intend to walk this far, we were after a short loop walk so hadn't taken any provisions or water with us but we did see a male Lyre bird, then a few yards down the path we saw a female. Lyre birds a bit like a peacock.

This was quite something, I don't think they are seen very often. Like the Echidna sighting, this was another first, perhaps I'll do A Big Year! The Lyre birds are amazing mimics, they'll mimic other birds and whatever else they hear, in this example the bird has got an entire construction yard going on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeQjkQpeJwY

After the walk we had a cream tea and checked out the Rhododendron Gardens, there were no Rhododendrons because they had finished for the season but it was still lovely. It had a souvenir shop full of nice things, we bought some nice things. On the way back the road went through some lovely twee villages with endless tea shops, if we hadn't already have had a cream tea I'm sure we would have stopped at Miss Marple's Tearooms!

Another lovely day seeing a really nice part of Victoria. John made a delicious dinner, mmm bacon, eggs, had browns and salad and a glass of wine.