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This posting continues the story of the Lyrebird nest, my first post being on 20 May, and covers 12 July to this morning. The female continues to spend the nights on the nest, arriving generally around 4pm and leaving around 7.30am the next morning. Her behaviour on the nest continues to include preening and settling, certainly looking like she is on an egg. Maybe these birds only need to incubate at night? Given that the female has to mind the egg without any assistance from the male, this could be a factor too. The nest floor is well insulated with soft lichens and many lyrebird feathers. There was a little drama on the night of 14/15 July when a rat visited (Black Rat, not Bush, judging by the length of the tail) and the Lyrebird had to defend the nest against it. The rat first arrived at 9.54pm and returned at 5.14am; pics 3-6 refer. An example of introduced rats being a risk to native birds. After some severe winds yesterday arvo the female briefly visited the nest to check all was well (pic 1), before returning for her nightly vigil about 90mins later. The pic of her flying from the nest was this morning at 7.52am. Just over 200 video clips were recorded by the trail camera this week, a big drop from the 1100 last week, indicating presumably that she is moving less on the nest at night. Thanks to friends Michael Mulvaney and Don Fletcher I am in the process of purchasing an endoscopic camera so that I can see into the nest more effectively and to hopefully see the egg, which I am confident is there, given that the female has been making these nightly stays for several weeks now. Stay tuned!