Living with lyrebirds

In my family, ornithology meant lyrebirds. Just before I started school we moved to the market town of Croydon, at that time beyond the fringes of suburban Melbourne. The Dandenong Ranges were in our backyard, close by — too close when the major fires of the summer of 1962 swept through, and my father joined the firefighters and came home, late, blackened, with his eyebrows singed. But in late autumn and winter, the Dandenongs were cool, friendly and at peace.