The May meeting will again be a normal face-to-face one held at our usual venue, but as school virus rules have remained unchanged you will still need to wear a mask and also check in using the Check in CBR QR code, as noted in the COG COVID Safety Plan – see the link available on the Home page of this web site.
The short presentation will be by Julian Teh currently with the CSIRO Wildlife Collection on “Introducing the Plains-wanderer”
Julian’s talk will cover an introductory overview of the Plains-wanderer’s biology, life history, and what makes them such an interesting and unique species. He will talk a bit about his experiences with them in the field, discuss how best to find one in the wild, and briefly touch on some of the illustration work he has done with them over the last three years.
The main presentation will be by Julian Reid, an Honorary Lecturer at the Fenner School of Environment and Society, ANU, with the title: “Long-term Trends of Birds in the Cowra District, central Western Slopes, NSW.”
A BirdLife Australia project, the Cowra Woodland Birds Program (CWBP) arose from growing concerns over the conservation prospects of birds in the woodlands of south-eastern Australia, and after a Cowra local businessman, farmer and birdwatcher, John Rankin, attended a Scientific Day in Sydney and met with the late Dr Sue Briggs and me to raise concerns about the loss of small woodland birds in his local area. From small things big things grow. Julian will briefly describe the range of activities the CWBP has undertaken, focussing on the long-term dataset of systematic bird observations taken at numerous sites from autumn 2002 onwards. The results of statistical modelling of the population trajectories (“trends”) of 105 species and 18 community indices are summarised for the first 17 years, and comparisons made with the results of similar long running programs including those of COG. Illustrating the divergent trends shown by various species, Julian will highlight the most significant findings from a bird conservation perspective and make a few comments about the limitations of unfunded citizen-science research.