Good morning COG/Canberra Birds members and chat line subscribers, a reminder that the monthly COG/Canberra Birds meeting will be held tomorrow evening Wednesday 14 May from
7:30 pm at our usual Canberra Girls Grammar School venue. However, please note the changed access arrangements which will be in place for 2025 while the construction in the Gabriel Drive parking area continues.
The amended map can be accessed through the following link
COG monthly meeting location - Canberra Birds.
Everyone is welcome so please come along to hear fascinating stories about two different Cockatoo species.
There will be the usual raffle, and you will also be able to enjoy a cup of tea or coffee after the meeting.
Jack Holland
The May 2025 meeting will be a normal face-to-face one held at our usual venue. As COVID is still widespread in the community attendees should heed social distancing and
good hygiene practice etc, and use their common sense and stay home if they have COVID symptoms. Mask wearing is recommended.
Shefali Dorepalli -
The life and times of a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo: Age-related variation in cognition and behaviour.
Rob Heinsohn - Where music meets conservation: the incredible Palm Cockatoos of Cape York Peninsula.
Please note that construction is still occurring around the Gabriel Drive parking area, and access to there is still not available. However, for 2025 the access gate and
parking spot has changed. Entry and exit are now from the main gates on Melbourne Ave which automatically open and close. The Entry gate will be open, so please drive through and park in the main parking area to your left. Once parked proceed to the Multi-media
Theatre (MMT) using the more direct route in the amended map to that provided by the Canberra Girls Grammar School can be accessed through the following link
COG monthly meeting location - Canberra Birds.
This is roughly perpendicular to Melbourne Ave. Keep the Admin Hub, Reception and School Shop to your right and then proceed along a relatively flat and straight broad path
keeping the columns to you left. Near to the end, go left up the 3 m wide steps, turn half right and you will find an open glass door. Go through this, across the empty room and past the toilets, and then enter the MMT either through the bottom MMT door
or go further along and up the steps where you reach the usual entry door.
Though it is well lit, as it will be dark before and after the meeting, a torch for finding your way to the MMT and back to your car is recommended. The Exit gate is on a
sensor pad, so please drive up to the gate and it will open for you.
The short presentation will be by Shefali Dorepalli, a
Ph D student at the Research School of Biology at the ANU, on “The life and times of a Sulphur-crested
Cockatoo: Age-related variation in cognition and behaviour.”
Behavioural change can occur across the lifetime of an individual. How and when do these changes occur? Do individuals develop certain abilities and skills over their juvenile
period, and refine their social connections or movement patterns into adulthood? In this talk, Shefali will discuss her Ph D work, which seeks to understand age-related variation in cognition and behaviour in an iconic long-lived species, the
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita). She will talk about changes in social behaviour, movement patterns, motor skills and some fundamental cognitive abilities, inhibitory control and object permanence.
The main presentation will be by
Professor Rob Heinsohn of the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the ANU and is entitled “Where music meets conservation: the incredible Palm Cockatoos of Cape York Peninsula.”
Australia’s
Palm Cockatoos are well-known for their unique love of drumming. The males craft their own drum sticks or seed pod tools and bang rhythmically on their nest hollows to attract potential mates or to mark their territory. This talk will showcase this
unique behaviour and how it may have evolved.
