From among many informative graphics perpetrated over the years, I have dug out this one for a re-airing, because it has a degree of topicality, and shows the ephemeral character of political undertakings. For those too young to remember that particular summit (and there have been others) I attach the news item. The question hanging in the air is: will the ACT now get its brolgas? There are two reasons why this might be open to doubt: first, the GFC and the issue about the surplus; secondly, the ACT did actually have a couple of brolgas, on display some years ago at Tidbinbilla, but traded them in for some other species that was regarded as ‘more appropriate’. This might have been the well-known magpie-geese. This reminds me that too much time has elapsed since someone asked whether the magpie-geese, or any of them, are of natural occurrence. On a marginally related issue, yesterday Elizabeth raised with me the matter of the feral goose that haunts the eastern end of LBG. I think this is the one that haunts the channel between the Molonglo and Jerra Creek and is usually only seen by kayakers. There is a similar one on the Q’beyan sewage ponds, and it would be no surprise if it had been flushed out by the recent rain, but my belief, subject to correction by goose specialists, is that the channel bird is a male and the QBSW one is a female.
