Archived news

The Thursday Talks Program for 2017 resumed on 2 February with a talk by Tim Fischer AC. Tim Fischer, former Deputy Prime Minister and Ambassador to the Holy See, is currently the Vice-Chair, Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) for the Svalbard Seed Vault, Norway. The talk was entitled Collecting Vital Seeds: from the Gallipoli Oaks collected by John Monash to the Crop Trust and Svalbard Vault today, collecting seeds matters more than ever!

Every year for 20 years the Friends have run a schools photographic competition. Many excellent images were submitted this year - a total of 337, a large increase on last year. The award ceremony was held on Saturday 12 November. Competition judge Ken Crawford congratulated students on the quality and originality of their work.

Members of the Friends are invited to a free panel discussion at CSIRO Discovery Centre, Black Mountain, at 3-5 pm on 2 November 2016. RSVP is essential. Click on the blue heading above for more details.

We had a marvellous time with this year’s season of Breakfast with the Birds despite the threatening weather.  Our Tawny frogmouth on the nest disappeared when a huge limb fell off the tree but otherwise the birds were cooperative, sharing nesting activities and feeding their young for our enjoyment.  The magpies had added plant name tags to their already blue tape decorated nests in the apartment tree outside the Crosby Morrison building.  There were lots of honeyeaters – breakfasting on the nectar in the grevilleas along the main path and the spotted pardalote was once more in the tunnel, allowing us to share his jewel-like colours up close.  A discordant note was struck by a Goshawk making life hard for the Wood ducks and their ducklings on the café lawn although it was interesting to see the way the parents protected the young against predation.