Australasian Ornithological Conference Adelaide November 25-29 2015

 
Val and I flew to Adelaide to attend the Australasian Ornithological Conference at Flinders University from November 25 to November 27.  We also attended two field trips on the weekend.  We arrived a day early so investigated the bus pick up point where we would need to meet the bus the following morning.  We were staying at Glenelg South but the pick up point was at Glenelg.  In the park opposite there was a replica of the HMS Buffalo which had been used as a restaurant but was now in a state of disrepair.

HMS Buffalo - Glenelg, Adelaide

HMS Buffalo

  The following information was published on www.virtualtourist.com:

"The HMS Buffalo was built as the Hindostan in Calcutta in 1813. She was subsequently purchased by the Royal Navy as a storeship and renamed HMS Buffalo. Prior to the event for which she is remembered in Glenelg, the Buffalo, after service in the Napoleonic Wars had made a number of trips to Australia and New Zealand as a freighter, quarantine ship and perhaps most notably as a convict ship (to Australia) in the early 1830s.

The trip for which she is remembered here in Glenelg is the one on which she (though described as “an old tub” totally unfit for surveying work) departed Portsmouth on 23 July 1836 carrying 176 colonists. These included Captain John Hindmarsh, who was to become the first Governor of the new colony of South Australia following his proclamation of the colony on 28 December 1836 – the day he arrived here in Holdfast Bay.  Hindmarsh was not a particularly good Governor or administrator and was replaced eighteen months later on 16 July 1838, by Governor Gawler.

The ship is in the Patawalonga River and is a replica of the Buffalo which operated as a restaurant though the ship is owned by the local council.

The ship is in a very bad state of repair and the council is actually considering destroying it as neither the restaurant owners nor other developers have shown any interest in restoring it due to the cost involved.

The original HMS Buffalo was wrecked on 28 July 1840 by a storm while anchored in Mercury Bay off Whitianga on the North Island of New Zealand. The wreck was located in 1986".


 

Near the replica of the HMS Buffalo is an anchor with a plaque that reads "Good luck anchor - just rub the fluke and luck you'll hook for all next week hae' what you seek.  This anchor is believed to have been left in Holdfast Bay by HMS Buffalo.  It brought good luck to the early settlers."

Why an anchor would be left behind is a mystery. 

 

The conference consisted of a full program of talks, both lengthy plenary and short 10-12 minute sessions covering all aspects of Australian and New Zealand birds.  There were  also a couple of talks on birds from other countries.  I presented a short talk on the Common Myna survey that I had carried out, with Russell Jago, in the Clarence Valley local government area.  All of the talks were interesting and it was good to catch up with old birding friends and to make a few new ones.  What was shared by all of the conference delegates was a real concern for Australasian birds and the plight that many were in.  There were a few good news stories, such as the recent work on the Night Parrot by Steve Murphy, but many talks highlighted declines and on-going threats to many species.

In the next blog I will report on the two field trips that followed the conference.