The story so far:
The Department of Wildlife and Tourism has been asked to
design a postage stamp showing Canberra’s wildlife. Barry, head of
the Public Affairs Branch, has given the job to Wayne, Trevor and Fiona, because
of their wildlife knowledge and artistic skills. Wayne is the chair of
the team. They must choose up to 6 birds, 3 mammals, a couple of insects, a
reptile, and a few plants. This is their third meeting.
WAYNE: OK we’ve got a lot to discuss at this
meeting. Take a look at this –
TREVOR: You’ve got a lot of trees there, Wayne
WAYNE: That, Trevor, is the famous redgumyellowbox
woodland, and there’s quite a bit of it around, although not as much as
some people would like apparently. Now Fiona, you will observe that there
is a pair of Gang-gangs, one of which, if you are familiar with the species,
can be seen to be a female.
FIONA: Yes, thank you, Wayne
WAYNE: However there is an annotation to remind you
that that your moth picture is outstanding. You know, the one that makes
those scribbles.
FIONA: Yes, Wayne, I’m having a bit of trouble.
Apparently there’s more than one moth, and CSIRO are worried that if they
give us a picture we might show it on the wrong kind of tree so they want to
see our tree first.
WAYNE: Unbelievable. You’d think
professionals could trust one another. Now bad luck about your platypus,
Fiona. We are showing a farm dam, and I’m told that it’s
extremely unlikely you’d get a platypus in one of those. So I think
we might need to go with a kangaroo drinking out of the dam, which it seems is
quite a normal occurrence. We’re not going to give the
nitpickers an opening there. You will see we’re going
with the wombat. They definitely occur around here and I’m told
they can be seen in day time in the early morning. We can describe the
whole thing as an early morning scene.
TREVOR: I’ve got a terrific idea for another
mammal. A fruit bat! There’s thousands of them in
Commonwealth Park. This must be the only major Australian city to have
them right in the middle.
WAYNE: You mean apart from Sydney and Brisbane and
Melbourne and ...
FIONA: And Yeppoon.
TREVOR: Fiona we know you spent your holidays there,
but I did say MAJOR city.
WAYNE: Come on you two. That’s enough niggling.
TREVOR: Well, I reckon there are more fruit bats in Inner
Canberra than any other mammal
FIONA: Except humans
WAYNE: Fiona I’ve told you before, being
facetious doesn’t suit you. Now, we need a lot more thought on the
birds. I’m suggesting a wood duck there. I must say I don’t
think you two have pulled your weight on bird selection.
TREVOR: Wayne, I did suggest that emu.
WAYNE: Trevor, let me tell you that your emu is very lightly
pencilled in and it’s hanging on by the skin of its teeth. I’ve
been keeping an eye out since we last discussed it and I still haven’t
seen one. I’m having a word to the Canberra Ornithologists
and depending on what they say it might be going out. Right, I’ll
report back to Barry, and we’ll meet again next week. Oh and Fiona,
have you got on to Ian Fraser about that orchid?
FIONA: I’ve been trying Wayne, but he
seems to very busy.
WILL TREVOR”S EMU SURVIVE? WILL FIONA BE ABLE TO
SPEAK TO IAN? WAIT FOR THE NEXT INSTALMENT
