Temporary change of meeting venue for Canberra Birds

The Canberra Birds committee has decided to change the venue for our monthly members’ meetings, at least until renovations of the Canberra Girls Grammar School’s Multi-media Theatre are complete, expected in August/September 2026.

The new venue is the Bugang Room at the Denman Village Community Centre, located at 5 Felstead Vista, adjacent to the Denman Prospect shops (see Google Maps link https://maps.app.goo.gl/NqW3XrN5iJf8dzRe9)

This is a light, spacious, modern event venue with a kitchen.  There is plentiful parking, under lights, close to the door and with several disabled parking spots outside the door.  The room is on the first floor, accessed by two flights of stairs or by a lift.

To help guide you once there the Canberra Birds Sandwich Boards will be outside the front door.

For people attending the meeting by public transport, the R10 bus provides a very good service around every 15 minutes from the ANU through Civic to the Denman Prospect shops with the bus stop opposite the venue.  For example, a bus runs to there from 6:57 to 7:23 pm and return buses at 9:05 or 9:35 pm arriving at the ANU at 9:31 and 10:01 pm, respectively.

The short presentation will be by Philip Veerman on “An exposé of the story of the description of new subspecies of Australian birds in Canberra Bird Notes.”

One of the most unexpected and yet important items ever to have been published by COG was this article in 1988.  Two versions of parts of the story have previously appeared and it is a strange story to be retold now, with adding the other side that has not been told before, being the role of the editor of the time and how and why it was necessary and how COG was helped whilst being able to make this valuable contribution.

The main presentation will be by Dr Laura Rayner on “An update of Superb Parrot research”

Laura is an Assistant Director with the Office of Nature Conservation and lead author of the forthcoming ACT Nature Conservation Strategy. She is a passionate supporter of COG since moving to the ACT in 2010 when she started analysing the group’s long-term woodland bird monitoring dataset, contributing to multiple scientific papers and technical reports on the program.

Laura has a Ph D in conservation ecology from the Australian National University and has worked extensively in the field of woodland bird and tree hollow research for almost 20 years. She has worked extensively with the ANU’s Difficult Bird Research Group on species such as Regent Honeyeaters, Swift Parrots, Orange-bellied Parrots, but in particular Superb Parrots and Regent Parrots. Laura is a strong advocate for threatened species recovery, mature tree protection, nature positive policy, and science communication.

In her presentation, Laura will provide a Superb Parrot research update to the group. Her talk will cover a new range-wide monitoring program that is improving how we track Superb Parrot populations, along with cutting-edge research from the ANU revealing fresh insights into the birds’ long-range movements. Laura will also discuss practical conservation efforts closer to home, including work to reduce predation pressure at Canberra’s critical nesting colonies and a new, coordinated approach to managing nest boxes across the ACT. Together, we can discuss how monitoring, research and on-ground management are being integrated to support the conservation of this much-loved threatened species.