Fair point, Geoffrey. I am
chastened.
Regards
Lindsay
From: Geoffrey Dabb
[
Sent: Sunday, 12 December 2010
10:31 AM
To:
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds]
Crested Pigeons and futile endeavours
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slightly out-of-date Canberra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
