Please note that construction is currently occurring around the Gabriel Drive parking area, and access to there is not available. So please use the Chapel Drive entrance and park there. Then proceed to the Multi-media Centre (MMT) using the alternative route the Canberra Girls Grammar School has provided as shown in the map on this web site found using the link under LATEST NEWS on the home page.
Once parked proceed down past the Chapel and smaller Admin Offices, keeping them to your left. Just past the latter turn left along a relatively flat and straight broad path keeping the columns to you left. Near to the end, go left up the 3 m wide steps, turn half right and you will find an open glass door. Go through this, across the empty room and past the toilets, and then either enter the MMT either through the bottom MMT door or go further along and up the steps where you reach the usual entry door. Though it is well lit, as it will be dark a torch for finding your way to the MMT and back to your car after the meeting is recommended.
The Bird of the Month presentation will be by Jack Holland on the “Horsfield’s and Shining Bronze-Cuckoo.”
Jack will outline the diagnostic identification features of this often-confused pair of species. The purpose of this talk is to refresh identification skills for these soon to return spring/summer migrants.
The main presentation will be by Leo Joseph, Director of the Australian National Wildlife Collection at the CSIRO on “Tales of Australian Birds in New Guinea and New Guinean Birds in Australia.”
Although we often think and talk about the birds of Australia, one of the most important lessons to come out of the last 60 years or so of research is that the birds and indeed much of the fauna of Australia and New Guinea are two sides of one coin. Consider Canberra’s familiar King Parrots. Their formal vernacular name is the Australian King-Parrot. That reminds us that there are two other species, the Papuan King-Parrot across New Guinea and the Moluccan King-Parrot on Indonesian islands and the far west of New Guinea. In this talk, Leo will take us on a tour of some recent (and not so recent) research stories about orioles, monarchs, kingfishers, logrunners, owls and even magpies that will remind us of why we should always be thinking of the birds of Australia as being part of an avifauna shared with New Guinea and indeed other surrounding areas.