By Tyler Wright
Monbulk’s Jan Incoll – also known as the ‘Lyrebird lady’- has been named on the King’s Birthday Honours List, receiving an OAM (Order of Australia) for her service to conservation and the environment.
Ms Incoll has volunteered for the Sherbrooke Lyrebird Study Group for 24 years, holding the role of secretary since 2005.
“The lyrebird survey group has been going for 65 years…it’s the longest continuous serving volunteer group in Victoria, and over that time only had four secretaries,” Ms Incoll said.
Growing up in Bendigo, it was a trip to Selby as a child that ignited Ms Incoll’s intrigue in the species.
“I really thought that I would see lyrebirds down near the Sherbrooke [art] Stockade… I was quite disappointed that I didn’t see one,” she said.
“Later on when we came here to live when I was married… one day my husband and I were jogging in the forest and somebody told us that there were two lyrebirds calling at the top of the hill, I said ‘they won’t be there when we get there’, but sure enough they were.”
From then on, Ms Incoll has been found Sherbrooke Forest most mornings monitoring the lyrebird population in the Sherbrooke Forest for the survey group’s database.
“It’s just superb. Every time I go in, I see something different…the other day I was watching one of our favourite birds called Pretender displaying, then all of a sudden he froze and I thought, ‘what’s going on here?’ And sure enough, a powerful owl flew over.
“All those things that are just amazing.”
For Ms Incoll, each lyrebird has their own characteristics.
“They’re almost like people with personalities,” she said.
“Pretender, we all love, is wonderful for photographers…all the film crews who come in want to film Pretender, and he’s a bird that you can get close to.
“I was watching one of the really old birds, he was born in 2000, over near the falls…he’s getting anxious for [a female] coming into the breeding season.
“In my time of watching them, I’ve probably seen four matings. That’s the holy grail of what you want to get; a mating.”
Ms Incoll said she was “honoured and surprised” to receive The Order of Australia medal.
“I don’t know who nominated me, because they don’t tell you that, but I’d like to say thank you to all the people that are in my group, the ones that are present and the ones who’re no longer with us, and to also thank Parks [Victoria] for their support over the years” she said.
The Sherbrooke Lyrebird Study Group’s dawn survey results in 2022 saw 76 male lyrebirds detected in the area, with population numbers slowly increasing.
But Ms Incoll said the June 2021 storm event “devastated” the west side of Sherbrooke Forest, leaving the group unable to monitor that particular area for two years.
“Their biggest problem present in the forest is deer.”
At this time of year, Ms Incoll, who has also been a committee member for Friends of Sherbrooke Forest, voluntarily takes groups through Sherbrooke Forest to see the Superb Lyrebird.
“I like to share what I enjoy with other people,” she said.
“It’s important. It’s important to my husband, too. Bill does weeds and I do the lyrebirds. Sometimes I’m walking the forest and people will pass me and say ‘you’re the lyrebird lady’.”
“I should get my tail out.”
During winter, the lyrebird study group holds dawn survey’s beginning at Grants Picnic Ground in Kallista.
For more information on the group or to book a place at the sawn surveys, email Jan Incoll: bincoll@melbpc.org.au
You can also learn more at the group’s website, http://sherbrookelyrebirdstudygroup.blogspot.com/
