Several years ago, the co-ordinator of this list, David McDonald
of Wamboin, NSW, suggested that contributors give details of locations
mentioned ‘for the information of subscribers not living in the Canberra
area’ – or something of the sort. That suggestion, useful
though it was, has not, I think it fair to say, been generally taken up.
After all, non-residents who are really interested in such things can probably
acquire through eBay a slightly out-of-date Canberra street directory for practically
nothing.
However, Lindsay’s below message prompts me to offer a
little gratuitous advice to non-residents about one confusing matter concerning
Canberra’s geography.
Subscribers might recall the exchange of 20 November between
David and Martin Butterfield on the etymology of ‘Jerrabomberra’.
But what is ‘Jerrabomberra’?
Geographically, Jerrabomberra is a creek that flows into Lake
Burley Griffin in the vicinity of the Canberra morgue and quite close to a
prestige residential development on former swampland that is pretentiously if
inappropriately labelled ‘Kingston Foreshores’, at what residents
like to think of as the Venice End of the lake. Jerrabomberra Creek
rises, if one can use that term for the most intermittent of watercourses, far
to the south in the vicinity of the hamlet of Williamsdale. Thence, it
flows north in New South Wales, entering the ACT under an obsolete railway
bridge behind the light industrial suburb of Hume. In the ACT, its
presence is acknowledged in the names of ‘Jerrabomberra Avenue’, ‘Jerrabomberra
Sportsground’, and, of course ‘Jerrabomberra Wetlands Nature
Reserve’. ‘Jerrabomberra’ is an ACT planning
locality, just like ‘Tuggeranong’.
Naturally enough the name also applies to the creek’s flattish
grassy valley, so one also hears of the ‘Jerrabomberra Grasslands’,
known to some people as a haunt of the Grassland Earless Dragon. However,
my main point is that the name has been adopted by NSW naming authorities for a
suburb of Queanbeyan, which has its own postcode: ‘2619’. Thus
there is a Jerrabomberra this-and-that associated with the new
development. This is all to explain that ‘Lake Jerrabomberra’
mentioned by Lindsay, an ornamental impoundment, has nothing to do with
Jerrabomberra Wetlands.
I might add that lying to the west and separated from
Jerrabomberra 2619 by Jerrabomberra Creek is the excitingly named new suburb of
‘Environa’. This abuts the ACT, being separated only by the
obsolete railway line and the Fraser Park Raceway.
From: Lindsay Hansch
[
Sent: Sunday, 12 December 2010 8:36 AM
To: COG-L
Subject: [canberrabirds] Crested Pigeons
I
am aware that Sandgrouse in Africa carry water to nestlings by trapping it in
their breast feathers. Does anyone know if pigeons here do the
same. Early this week while doing my GBS count I saw a pair of Crested
Pigeons circling low over the water in Lake Jerrabomberra. While I watched
one bird landed in the water, remained for a few seconds and then took off,
heading directly away from the lake followed by its mate. Is there any
other explanation for this behavior?
Lindsay
Hansch
