Well, yes.
However someone hasn’t been reading their draft Master Plan. For this generation of planners, hides are not hides - they are fun places for the new demographic. Hard though it might be to credit, the following is a snip from the draft Master Plan on the guiding principles for our hides:
Not much there about not scaring the bird life. Anyway, you don’t need to see birds when there’s the interpretive signage. The true aim of a hide should be to modify an otherwise threatening presence - even though the bird can generally ‘see’ the observer. Here is an example of a 2-way sighting from the Cygnus hide just this morning -
From: Yarden Oren [
Sent: Monday, 17 December 2012 10:10 AM
To: 'Chris Davey'; 'Freeman, John'; 'Maconachie, Michael'
Cc: 'BirdlineACT'; 'Canberra Birds'
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] re hide refurbishment at Jerrabomberra Wetlands
Very well put!!
From my view as a birdwatcher, the new hides have undone some of the advantages that the HIDES were supposed to perform. The brush screens as already mentioned, should be remodelled to achieve useful ventage points for a broad range of persons (I won’t be surprised if we start seeing individual “adjustments” soon to the current slots).
I second the call for COG input into hide design (and other such adjustments) before any further maladjustments take place.
Yarden
