Thank you for the question, Martin, as they like to say in the national parliament. I have time to respond, my efforts to photograph the ANU owls at the crease having been cut short by the midday
downpour.
For many years I have been a keen observer of the view from Cygnus Hide, since before digital photography, and before Harvey’s helpful initiative in attaching names to these structures. It has struck
me as a notable feature of that view that, while distant waterbirds might command attention, small passerines can usually be seen foraging a metre or two in the foreground, even along the ledge on which one rests one’s binoculars or other equipment. I have
had a Grey Fantail in the hide itself. Prominent among these little chaps is the Fragile-tailed Malurus, recently voted Australia’s favourite bird.
A feature of that hide is that due to the growth and shaping of the vegetation the view is divided into sections. If you are on the right you cannot see the productive little pocket down to the
right obscured by the callistemon. If you are on the left you cannot see down the avenue that has been cut through the typha that you can see from the right. ‘You’ll see it better from over here’ is advice that is frequently shared between helpful Cygnus-Hide
users, in my experience.
Next, I come to the object of interest chosen to represent something that can be seen only from the right (but perhaps only fleetingly, as often happens when the nonsighted birdwatcher needs to shift
position). I confess here that the object chosen might not be to everyone’s taste. Some might think it has a disagreeable political tinge. On past occasions I have deployed a representation of the Monster from the Black Lagoon for such purposes. However
these days there is no telling what people will regard as disagreeable or unacceptably political or whatever. I believe some people would see the Monster from the Black Lagoon as having inappropriate political implications.
Finally, there is the matter of my circulating this little graphic in association with your own informative messages under the title ‘Wednesday Walk to Googong’. For this I have the strongest practical
reason. Some messages to this chatline do not go through. I believe that is caused by a filtering process that has regard to the title of the message. I had previously despatched this contribution with an informative title, referring in fact to the view
from Cygnus Hide. My strategy for dealing with that problem is to use a title that has already been successful, at the price, admittedly, of a possible mismatch between the title and my message. May I say that ‘ Wednesday Walk to Googong’ has proved to be
a highly successful title, leading to transmission in only a few seconds. Later I might experiment with adding a few words of explanation to my message, but I am proceeding cautiously at this stage.
I have just noticed that the downpour that was threatening the invocation of Duckworth-Lewis at Turner has not yet reached Narrabundah.
From: Martin Butterfield <>
Sent: Friday, 19 October 2018 6:35 PM
To: Geoffrey Dabb <>
Cc: COG List <>
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Wednesday Walk to Googong
Que? Or to put it in political terms "Please explain?"
On Fri, 19 Oct 2018 at 18:29, Geoffrey Dabb <> wrote:
From: Martin Butterfield <>
Sent: Thursday, 18 October 2018 5:57 AM
To:
Cc: COG List <>; COG Wednesday Walkers <m("canberrabirds.org.au","ww");" target="_blank">>; gang-gang <m("canberrabirds.org.au","gang-gang");" target="_blank">>
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Wednesday Walk to Googong
Thanks for those excellent images Roman. I have added the one one of the Dusky in the nest site to the eBird checklist.
On Wed, 17 Oct 2018 at 22:29, Roman Soroka <> wrote:
Here is a link to a few images from this morning's walk:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ro27a9s3apGGb3Q3A
Roman
On 17/10/2018 4:32 PM, Martin Butterfield wrote:
The editors of Gang-gang may wish to use this as the report on the trip. It has been added to the Trips component of the COG website.
8 members gathered at the foreshores carpark near the dam wall at Googong. Presumably most potential attendees had seen the BoM weather forecast (8-20mm of
rain and thunderstorms). Or perhaps they had looked at a weather site on the internet last evening, showing massive a massive band of storms stretching from Charleville to Albury. This had largely gone away by the morning.
No rain fell during the outing.
There were some good sightings close to the start including a Dusky Woodswallow building a nest in the slightly eroded top of a fence post. A Whiskered Tern was
seen flying across the water and a Pied Stilt wading on the edge. In contrast to my dry run last Saturday there were good numbers of waterfowl visible on the dam including Pacific Black Duck, Australian Wood Duck, Grey Teal, Hardhead and both small Grebes.
Little Pied, Little black and Great Cormorants were mainly decorating dead trees on the bank.
Some eucalypts were flowering and were attracting some insects. This didn't seem to be attracting many birds although we did record several species of Honeyeater
(Yellow-faced; White-eared and Fuscous Honeyeaters, Red Wattlebird, Noisy Friarbird and Noisy Miners
The editors of Gang-gang may wish to include the following in the upcoming trips area. (More detail will be added on the COG website as it becomes available.)
The Wednesday Walk for November will be to a private property on Baroona Rd, off the Monaro Highway just South of Michelago. As it is a longer trip folk may wish
to plan car pooling and perhaps bring lunch and visit some other spots (eg Kelly Rd) on the way home.
