canberrabirds

Oh Canada

To: 'Virginia Abernathy' <>, 'Martin Butterfield' <>, "" <>, 'Kevin and Gwenyth Bray' <>
Subject: Oh Canada
From: Philip Veerman <>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 08:04:37 +0000

This discussion has been had before (or was it on Birding-aus). There are many (maybe most) animal emblems of political jurisdictions that are not endemic (or sometimes even not native) to the countries they are chosen to represent. Think most obviously of the lion and unicorn for Britain.

 

Philip

 

From: Virginia Abernathy [
Sent: Friday, 9 December, 2016 6:15 PM
To: Martin Butterfield; ; Kevin and Gwenyth Bray
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Oh Canada

 

But Loons also breed in the northern US. I studied them one year in Wisconsin. :)

 


From: Kevin and Gwenyth Bray <>
Sent: 09 December 2016 18:07
To: Martin Butterfield;
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Oh Canada

 

Hi Martin

 

I’m a bit puzzled by the purported rationale for Canada choosing the beaver as opposed to a  bird, since the beaver is also to be found in the USA!

 

If it were up to me – having lived in Canada for 4 years in the 1960s and 70s – I’d have chosen the Loon, a beautiful bird with a haunting call which we saw and heard on many trips into the Canadian wilderness.

 

Cheers.

 

Kevin

 

Kevin and Gwenyth Bray

02 6251 2087
0406 376 878 (Mob, Kevin)
0409 584 342 (Mob, Gwenyth)

 

From:

Sent: Thursday, December 8, 2016 5:16 PM

To:

Cc:

Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Oh Canada

 

An interesting read, especially about naming conventions! 

 

I was also interested to see the comment

“We have an animal symbol, which is the beaver,” he said by way of analogy. “I would say that most Canadians don’t see a beaver in a given year. " 

Presumably that's because the people in Toronto don't see them.   We lived in Ottawa for a year, and beavers were common there, to the extent that City workers used dynamite to clear beaver dams built across suburban creeks so that they didn't cause floods in the Spring thaw.

 

I wondered why they didn't select an endemic bird, to which the simple answer is they don't really have one.  Dr Google offered a list of three species:

  • Labrador Duck (extinct)
  • Ross's Goose (overwinters in US so IMHO not really endemic); and
  • Harris's Sparrow(ibid).

Martin

 

 

On 8 December 2016 at 16:12, Bill Hall <> wrote:

 

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