Performances: 11am, 1pm, 3pm & 6pm, November 18, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26, 28 29. Suggested Price: $15, tickets available here Duration: 20mins
‘On the Wings of a Godwit’ is a 20-minute, immersive, online guided meditation of music, birdsong and spoken word that takes the listener on a journey from the continental shores of Australasia to the tundra of Siberia. We invite you, the listener, to become a migratory bird, overwintering between your summer homes, following a flyway path that has been travelled for thousands of years.
Bird migration and colour marking webinar November 21
The Bombay Natural History Society in Mumbai is running a webinar on ‘Bird Migration and Colour Marking -Decoding Tagged Bird Sightings‘. Chris Hassell will be joining other shorebirds researchers to speak on how colour marking has been instrumental in understanding certain aspects of bird ecology and migration. You can find out more about flagging in the Central Asian Flyway and hear how to contribute to global studies on bird migration.
Date and time: Saturday, Nov 21, 2020, 11:30 AM – 01:00 PM, IST
The meeting had a fantastic array of speakers from different parts of the flyway, and a huge amount of new and exciting research and information was shared among participants.
A number of VWSG and AWSG members presented during this conference, about many great findings and achievements. There was also a fabulous plenary from Kate Gorringe-Smith on using art to engage, educate and inspire people about shorebirds.
Michelle Wille provided a excellent plenary speech on viruses in shorebirds. If you didn’t understand viruses before this talk, you would definitely know all about them after hearing this presentation!
Record-breaking Bar-tailed Godwit flight – 3MDR radio interview
Thursday 29th October at 18.00 hrs Melbourne time, Graham Beal will be talking to Adrian Riegen about the recent amazing record-breaking Bar-tailed Godwit flight on radio 3 mdr, 97.1fm and streaming, www.3mdr.com
October 24, 2020
Original Nicholas Day prints for sale
Penny Johns has two Nicolas Day original framed watercolours of Robins, a Pink Robin and a Red-capped Robin. She is offering them to VWSG members for sale. The asking price is $150.00 each. All proceeds will go to the VWSG.
Please contact Penny directly if you are interested.
September 15, 2020
PhD opportunity on waders at Deakin University
There is a PhD scholarship available for a keen and skilled candidate that would like to work on the population dynamics of shorebirds using long-term banding and resighting datasets collected by the Victorian Wader Study Group (VWSG) and Australasian Wader Studies Group (AWSG).
The #LegflagChallenge Photo Contest aims to encourage reporting of sightings of waterbirds in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway that carry leg flags, tags and other types of attachments. The competition runs until November 15. Find out more at https://woobox.com/fm3vhi
Double-banded Pover near Coolart Wetlands, Somers beach, Victoria. Photo courtesty of Nick Bradsworth
September 15, 2020
#ISTC20 International Shorebird Twitter Conference
The program for the International Shorebird Twitter Conference is now online at https://www.bou.org.uk/conference/istc20/. There’s a great list of keynote speakers including our very own Amanda Lilleyman.
The VWSG twitter presention on Wednesday 7th October between 10:30 and 10:40pm AEST DST (actual scheduled time is Thursday 8th October @ 9:30am UTC time).
August 24, 2020
#ISTC20 Twitter conference 7-8 October 2020
The VWSG is continuing its foray into the world of social media by presenting at the first International Shorebird Twitter Conference. The date and time for the VWSG tweets will be confirmed soon, so keep an eye on the website for an update.
August 20, 2020
AGL development proposal in the Western Port Ramsar site
The proposal by AGL to build a floating gas platform at Crib Point, south-east of Hastings in Western Port, has long angered the community of the Mornington Peninsula. This platform is planned to be built within the Ramsar site and is seen to present an unacceptable environmental risk. Mornington Peninsula Council has voted against this proposal. Of course, this does not mean the end of this project, however, this is an important step toward helping protect wader habitat in Western Port bay.