The November meeting will again be a normal face-to-face one held at our usual venue, but as the revised ACT Public School COVID Management Plan September 2022 (https://www.education.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/2075573/ACT-Public-School-COVID-Management-Plan-September-2022.pdf) states under Hiring a school facility: “For a hirer to access a public school facility they must have a COVID-19 Safety Plan which must include adhering to physical distancing and hygiene requirements. Private events held at a school facility must also comply with any applicable public health restrictions for events.” Therefore, meeting attendees will need to continue wearing masks.
After the AGM there will be a single speaker, long time COG member Con Boekel on “Dark Secrets of the Bush Capital.”
Con will talk about bird species disappearing from urban reserves in the inner northwest of Canberra. During three decades of walking on Black Mountain Con thought he noticed that some birds had disappeared altogether or had reduced in numbers. Con gathered the available data and then used Covid to complement it with extensive new field data. The results show that the claim to be the ‘Bush Capital’ glosses over some terrible trends (This talk will substantially cover the same ground as that given at the ANBG).