canberrabirds

Flight of the Sea-Eagle

To: Geoffrey Dabb <>
Subject: Flight of the Sea-Eagle
From: Martin Butterfield <>
Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2018 21:52:27 +0000
Geoffrey

I am afraid that I still hadn't paid my 10 pounds during the Menzies hegemony so never heard the gentleman speak  However I understand he enjoyed a bit of back and forth with hecklers so wonder how he responded.



On Mon, 19 Nov 2018 at 08:41, Geoffrey Dabb <> wrote:

So the word Manus is again on everyone’s lips with the news PNG, the US and Australia are to develop the naval base.  I first heard of the place in, I think, 1951or 1954 at an election meeting in West Geelong town hall addressed by Robert Menzies.  Menzies was still complaining that the Labor government had refused to accept a fully developed base there from the US at the end of WW2.  I remember this because of the following exchange:

 

Menzies:  And Manus went back to the jungle!

Interjector:  Why don’t you?!

 

I have visited the naval station when it was under Australian administration, the relevance for present purposes being that it was named HMAS Tarangau, ‘tarangau’ being the White-bellied Sea-Eagle in Melanesian pidgin.  The tarangau emblem was (perhaps still is) prominently displayed at the base.  This is one of our own local species, indeed one recorded in the 2016-2017 Garden Bird Survey with a recording rate of 0.04.  You will all know that the Bald Eagle emblem of the USA also depicts a sea-eagle, a relatively common bird around Washington DC.

 

You will probably not find Manus covered in most books on ‘New Guinea’ birds. However I might add that according to The Birds of Northern Melanesia (Mayr E & Diamond J, 2001) Manus has 50 resident land and freshwater bird species with an ‘endemism index’ of 0.72.  

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the Canberra Ornithologists Group mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the list contact David McDonald, list manager, phone (02) 6231 8904 or email . If you can not contact David McDonald e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU