Yesterday’s all-day symposium at NMA was
outstanding. It was entitled ‘Boom & Bust – Bird stories
for a dry country’. It began with a short account of the
‘pulse of desert Australia’ being on the cycles of rainfall and
temperature variation over the quarternary period. The presentations then
followed stories of particular bird species. Bill Gammage recounted and
explained the dramatic spread of the Galah since European settlement, drawing
on historical sources. (It only arrived in numbers in Canberra in
1978!). Penny Olsen gave one of her exquisitely crafted presentations,
this one on the Night Parrot. Rob Heinsohn gave a segment of the enormous
amount he knows about the private lives of choughs. Leo Joseph again
spoke on woodswallow speciation and relationships. Deborah Rose spoke on
bird associations with different kinds of ‘country’ in the Northern
Territory. Julian Reid described the enormous breeding colonies of
pelicans in desert Australia and mentioned theories on what might trigger the
gatherings. Mike Smith summarised what is known and not known about the
giant Genyornis, extinct a mere 45,000 years. Libby Robin gave an
entertaining presentation on the fortunes of the emu since European
settlement. There were shorter pieces on the Zebra Finch and Grey
Teal. It was a bit like a year of COG presentations in one day, and in
very listener-friendly surroundings. It deserved a larger audience,
although the notice given to this list was a bit late (that being where I heard
of it, on Thursday).
So many seminars and conferences offer subjects that are
basically unrelated, but this one had a theme, if a little elusive at times,
perhaps ‘Ten mysteries of the dry continent’. One way or
other, all presentations were related to ‘the pulse’. The
contributors are to produce a book that will be an elaboration of their
presentations.
