Hello COG members and chat line subscribers, a reminder about the COG meeting to be held from 7:30 pm tomorrow evening, 13 April.
Please note that while the meeting will be a normal face-to-face one held at our usual venue,
the Canberra Girls Grammar School, Multi-media centre, corner Gawler Cres and Melbourne Ave, Deakin, as indicated in the COG COVID Safety Plan (the link to this is available on the Home
page of the COG web site), you will need to wear a mask and also check in using the Check in CBR app and QR code.
Details of the speakers are below. It should be a very interesting evening, so please do not miss it.
Jack Holland
There will be two presentations of roughly equal length.
The first will be by Geoffrey Dabb entitled
“Arthur Mattingley, Mathoura, the Murray River, and the Egrets”
In 1906, Arthur Mattingley of Melbourne, a keen field ornithologist, secretary of the Australasian Ornithologists Union, and an officer of the Department of Trade and Customs, made photographs
of a colony of nesting egrets. Returning a few weeks later he found the colony had been devastated by plume hunters. He took photos of that scene too. Those photos received international publicity and played an important part in the world-wide campaign
to protect birds and ban the plumes trade. The egret colony was located 370 km west of Canberra in what was known as the Mathoura Wetlands. That area is part of what is now the Millewa-Barmah Red Gum Forest. This talk discusses egrets, the Mattingley story,
and the Red Gum forest today. The talk is also about a visit to the area in December 2021 to find out whether any breeding egrets can be seen there now.
The second presentation will be by
Lori Gould, Principal, GrassRoots Environmental, who will provide a “Latham’s Snipe
Project Update”
Lori’s presentation will provide an update on the progress of research on Latham’s Snipe, including bird movements within Australia and from Japan, observations, findings and progress. The talk will also
include information on the implications of outcomes of the research and where the project is heading into the future.
