“PJ Wallis, nervous and filled with adrenaline, was preparing to defend her friend’s home from a raging bushfire when she saw something remarkable.

We were waiting for this fire to hit and then all these lyrebirds kept coming down and drinking water out of the dam, she said. It was almost like any lyrebird in this huge radius knew that that was the safest place to be.

Ms Wallis was in a valley near Wollombi, New South Wales, on the edge of the Yengo National Park.

She managed to get a series of photographs of 11 birds, but said there were closer to 20 birds in the dam at one point.”