Our June meeting was an old-fashioned style of Retired and Leisured Group meeting where each member speaks. In this case their contribution was to be about birds in Western Australia.

Robin Roe brought in a copy of N. Cayley’s book What Bird Is That?, to which she was introduced as a child and which led to an abiding interest in birds. She cited a number of bird incidents about ibis, a Kookaburra and White-tailed Black-cockatoos.

Eddie Dell spoke about the 40 species of birds which inhabit his Sawyers Valley property. There are Scarlet Robins, cockatoos, Wood Ducks and only one migratory bird: the Rainbow Bee-eater. Among the nesting birds are honeyeaters, pardalotes, the Tawny Frogmouth and currawongs. Joy Dell gave a detailed description of the White-tailed Black-cockatoo.

Don Howe introduced us to the Cassowary—the most dangerous bird in the world, which can attack with its clawed feet. The females weigh about 83 kg and the males about half that weight and these birds can live for 40 years. They are an endangered species due to rapid clearing of habitat with only about 1500 birds left.

Doug Hide described birds in Canning Vale and those that he saw whilst working on Christmas Island, such as the Bosun Bird.

Margot Bentley spoke of two encounters with birds on a Murchison station and of a friend with a phobia towards feathers.

Michelle Kwok created an interesting change of pace with her pictures of the Great Cocky Count this year, including the initial training and the events during the count.

Otto Mueller brought in a number of clippings about various events over a period of years. He then went on to describe his huge experience in bird-banding, starting with his training and then the numerous projects in Australia including 80 Mile Beach and at length with bird banding and relocation of the Noisy Scrub Bird. Bird banding also took him overseas to various locations including Sulawesi.

This experiment to run a subject-oriented meeting for members’ contributions worked out very well and provoked good discussion.

Margot Bentley