Birdlife Australia's NSW-ACT Twitchathon 27 & 28 October 2012

NEWS RELEASE

Birdlife Australia’s NSW and ACT Twitchathon

27-28 October 2012

 

Founded in 1901, Birds Australia, now Birdlife Australia, is Australia's oldest national conservation organisation, dedicated to the study and conservation of native birds and their habitats. To assist the organisation in raising some of its funds, it conducts a Twitchathon on the last weekend of October each year.

 

Over the past sixteen years, birdwatchers all over NSW and the ACT have formed into teams and raced about NSW and the ACT to find as many species of birds as possible over the 24 hour Twitchathon period. Each member of the team has found sponsorship from friends, family, colleagues or corporations for each species of bird seen or heard by each team.  It has become an extremely competitive race and enormous fun!   Team members have won some fantastic prizes, which have been sponsored by very supportive corporations and individuals.  They have raised funds for projects associated with endangered species such as the purchase of trailer and watering units for the Capertee Regent Honeyeater Volunteer Operations Group, as well as equipment for both the Educational Units at Gluepot Reserve SA.& the Birds Australia Discovery Centre, Sydney Olympic Park. Funds have been provided for the Hunter Shorebird Roost Site Protection Project,  Gosford’s Friends of the Bush Stone-curlew, the Kangaroo Island SA Glossy Black Cockatoo Conservation Project and the Murray Valley Bush Stone-curlew Captive Release Project, and monitoring by volunteers of the NSW Important Bird Areas. Last year we provided funds for the Greater Sydney Powerful Owl Monitoring project. In the last three year, approximately $24,500 was raised each year for the projects outline.

 

This year’s Twitchathon aims to raise money for a project to increase both the area and connectivity of native habitats in the Cowra District, which is located on the Central Tablelands of New South Wales, c 100 km south west of Orange NSW and 317 km west of Sydney. In this area as throughout the agricultural lands of south-east Australia, woodland bird populations have declined, mainly due to the removal of woodland habitat. The small woodland fragments that are left are unconnected to others fragments, often degraded and suffer from the effects of invasive species. The Cowra Woodland Birds  Group are currently involved in a funded project at “Spring Forest” Koorawatha, to rehabilitate (by re-introducing native plant species) a large paddock adjoining Morongla Creek to improve connectivity between the creek (which flows into the Lachlan River) and the nearby woodlands to enable bird species to move more easily between habitats. The CWBG propose to use the Twitchathon funds to appoint a (part-time) project officer to develop a plan for an extended woodland  habitat corridor along Morongla Creek from ”Spring Forest” to the Lachlan River. This would involve the setting up a number of rehabilitation/and re-vegetation projects on private properties. CWBG are already doing quarterly surveys on some of these properties and have a good knowledge of possible sites but need the Project Officer to approach landholders, select suitable sites, develop appropriate management plans and advise on re-vegetation/rehabilitation methods.

 

Twitchathon 2012 aims to raise about $24,000 to assist this project.

 

So watch out for your local Twitchathon team and follow them through this fun event – watch them “twitch” about in rainforests, swamps, grasslands, woodlands, sewerage works, backyards and river estuaries, intensely listening, and desperately searching, for the most or the rarest species.  Experience the excitement of “ticking” and “dipping” on the birds, the desperation to win, the thrills, the spills of this great weekend adventure!   The teams could be competing in 40° temperatures or during a thunder storm but they will stick firmly to the Twitchathon Rules! They’ll never give up the thrill of the chase during the race because so many $’s are at stake!  Teams are not just competing for the highest score, but for the most dollars raised prizes or even the Lucky Twitcher’s Prize. 

 

You can also sponsor a few dollars to your local team by contacting:

 

Greg Clancy Tel…0266493153...Email: gclancy@tpg.com.au

 

Your local Twitchathon team is : Black-necked Stalkers..(Greg Clancy, Russell Jago, Gary Eggins and Annette Harrison).              

 

Their local bird club is: .Clarence Valley Birdos (Gary Whale 66461286).   

See you on the Twitchathon trail???

 

For further information contact :
Alan Morris, Twitchathon Coordinator

Birdlife Australia Sthn NSW & ACT Group Sydney

Tel 02 9647 1033    Fax (02) 9647 2030

Email: southernnsw@birdlife.org.au

 

Go, Kim Elvery - Vet Extraordinaire!

 

For all the talk about modern Australia being a sedentary nation, the NSW North Coast regularly throws up examples of why this is perhaps an overstatement of fact.

 

Today we feature Kim Elvery.

 

Dr Kim established Maclean Veterinary Clinic as the first clinic in the Lower Clarence region. Locally born and bred, she has a great understanding of local health issues and is an experienced surgeon.   Dr Kim has 2 children and a border collie named Lupin. She is a keen triathlon competitor.

Maclean now has a sister clinic at Yamba, having combined with Anton Sluyter’s practice in Treelands Drive.

 

Kim Elvery, an over 50s competitor, who despite fracturing her collarbone in a bike accident about two months ago went onto record these times in October 2012:

 

2012 Barfoot&Thompson World Triathlon Grand Final Auckland : 55-59 Female AG : Results

7

Kim

Elvery

AUS

02:46:00

00:30:55

00:04:37

01:19:07

00:03:47

00:47:32

 

 2012 Auckland ITU Aquathlon World Championships : 55-59 Female AG : Results

2 Kim

Elvery

AUS

00:44:05

00:00:00

00:00:00

00:19:25

00:02:19

00:22:20

Recent event history.

Persistent rumours grow legs in Cansdellgate

 

NSW Parliament Hansard 16 October 2012:

 

The Hon. MICK VEITCH: I direct my question to the Minister for Roads and Ports. Has the Minister received any information, verbal or written, suggesting that the former member for Clarence, Steve Cansdell, may have falsely nominated other drivers to cop the blame for traffic offences committed by him on more than one occasion? If so, did the Minister refer that information to the police? If not, why not?
The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: No and no.

 

NSW Parliament 16 October 2012:

 

The Hon. HELEN WESTWOOD: I direct my question to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, and Minister for the Hunter. What action is the Minister taking to ensure that a full and proper investigation is undertaken into the handling of the Steve Cansdell matter after the lawyer for the woman who blew the whistle publicly contradicted earlier suggestions that Mr Cansdell had escaped justice because she had refused to be interviewed?

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: If the member has concerns about the conduct of that investigation and she has reason to believe that something untoward happened, I suggest that she refer the matter to the Ombudsman. I have answered the question fully.

 

NSW Parliament Hansard 17 October 2012:

 

The Hon. LUKE FOLEY: I direct my question to the Minister for Roads and Ports. Has the Minister's office or department received any information of advice that would suggest the former member for Clarence, Mr Steve Cansdell, may have falsely nominated other drivers to shift the blame for traffic offences on more than one occasion?

Obamba and Romney quipping away at the 2012 Alfed E. Smith Memorial Dinner in New York as betting odds firm

 

 

http://youtu.be/NIHbe-aO6oI

 

http://youtu.be/S6g2YkTAYQ4

 

The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner is an annual white tie charity fundraiser for Catholic charities, held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York on the third Thursday of October (Smith died on October 4). It is organized by the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation in honor of former New York Governor Al Smith, the first Catholic presidential candidate. The first dinner was in 1945, the year after Al Smith's death.

How the world rates this contest between two privileged men.

Paddy Power betting odds:

Centrebet betting odds:

Sportsbet betting odds:

 

Thanks to the reader who pointed me towards these bets.

"Suffer the little children" takes on a new meaning this month

 

What Victoria Police told the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Organisations concerning the manner in which the Catholic Church deals with allegations of the sexual abuse of minors by those in religious orders: 
 

 

That the Catholic Church is seen as the principal offender against the rights of child victims is made clear:

 

http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/committees/fcdc/inquiries/57th/Child_Abuse_Inquiry/Submissions/Victoria_Police.pdf

 

Brisbane Times 19 October 2012:

Following up the explosive police submission to the state inquiry into the churches' handling of sex abuse, the deputy commissioner unloaded more broadsides attacking the Catholic Church's obstruction of police investigations into paedophile clergy going back six decades.

He unleashed his shocking litany in calm, measured tones, seated at a venerable table opposite the six committee members, watched by framed dignitaries on the wall and a packed chamber of visitors.

He said the police had for the first time aggregated their sexual offence statistics by clergy and church workers since January 1956: 2110 offences against 519 victims, overwhelmingly perpetrated by Catholic priests and mostly against boys aged 11 or 12. Yet the church had not reported a single crime to police.

The Church's submissions to this inquiry insist that there has been an emerging awareness of the problem, it has been recognised and the bishops are now handling allegations of sexual abuse in an appropriate manner.

However, this assertion denies fact. The Catholic Church has long known about sexual abuse by clergy and others. It has been codifying responses since its early years:

Child sexual abuse has always been a scourge in our society and in our Church.
[Rev. Msgr. Stephen J. Rossetti PhD DMin, undated]

The Council of Elvira, circa 306 AD - Canon Law

18. Bishops, presbyters, and deacons, once they have taken their place in the ministry, shall not be given communion even at the time of death if they are guilty of sexual immorality. Such scandal is a serious offense.

71. Those who sexually abuse boys may not commune even when death approaches.

[Catholic University of America]

While it was only the day before the Victorian inquiry began its public hearings that NSW Police arrested, charged with twenty-five offences and brought before the court a former priest who had allegedly abused children over a twenty year period before formally leaving the priesthood in 2005. A priest who had made certain admissions to the Church in 1992, but remained under its active protection for years until exposed in an ABC Four Corners program aired on 2 July 2012.

NASA livestreams the 2012 Orionid meteor shower

Streaming live video by Ustream

http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/orionids2012.html

The law makes an ass of itself over Father F.

 

This was published in The Sydney Morning Herald on 18 October 2012:

 

A former NSW priest who allegedly told three senior Catholic clergy a decade ago that he had repeatedly sexually abused children has been charged with 25 child-sex offences relating to three girls.

The 59-year-old was arrested at a home in Armidale this morning, and is expected to face court this afternoon in relation to the charges dating back to the 1970s and '80s.

Following his arrest, police urged anyone with information about an alleged cover-up by the Catholic Church to come forward…….

Father F, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was removed from public ministry after a meeting with three clergy in 1992, following continued allegations of abuse after he was moved from the Armidale diocese to Parramatta.

Readers will notice that for legal reasons the former Catholic priest cannot be named by the media.

 

However, on the very same day, the NSW court system only offered the pretence of a fig leaf to conceal his name in its online lists.

 

I received an email pointing this out to me and I’m sure that it was common knowledge elsewhere by the end of that day as I would not have been the only recipient.

 

Unfortunately, the unthinking court system also listed some other matters associated with these charges in such a way that the three girls (now women) were easily identified.