The lyrebird that imitates a chainsaw, the one nearly everyone has seen on television, lived in a wildlife sanctuary. Another famous mimic, at Adelaide Zoo, picked up hammers and drills while the builders were in. As far as anyone has recorded, no wild lyrebird has ever been caught copying a chainsaw. A bird copies what it hears most days, and in the forest that is other birds. The captive ones were never telling us about the forest. They were telling us, very accurately, about the zoo.