As detailed below there has been a change in venue for the first formal COG/Canberra Birds monthly meeting in 2026 on 11 February.
Temporary change of meeting venue for Canberra Birds
The Canberra Birds committee has decided to change the venue for our monthly members’ meetings, at least until renovations of the Canberra Girls Grammar School’s Multi-media Theatre are complete, expected in August/September 2026.
The new venue is the Bugang Room at the Denman Village Community Centre, located at 5 Felstead Vista, adjacent to the Denman Prospect shops (see Google Maps link https://maps.app.goo.gl/NqW3XrN5iJf8dzRe9)
This is a light, spacious, modern event venue with a kitchen. There is plentiful parking, under lights, close to the door and with several disabled parking spots outside the door. The room is on the first floor, accessed by two flights of stairs or by a lift.
For people attending the meeting by public transport, the R10 bus provides a very good service around every 15 minutes from the ANU through Civic to the Denman Prospect shops with the bus stop opposite the venue. For example, a bus runs to there from 6:57 to 7:23 pm and return buses at 9:05 or 9:35 pm arriving at the ANU at 9:31 and 10:01 pm, respectively.
The first speaker will be Dr Simon Copland, Executive Director of the Conservation Council ACT Region on “Saving Canberra’s Western Edge”.
Canberra’s Western Edge, a beautiful area of critically endangered ecosystems to Canberra’s west, is up for unsustainable, unaffordable and dangerous development by the ACT Government. In this presentation, Simon will talk about the importance of this region, the threats it faces, and what we can do to ensure it is preserved.
This important area is bordered by the Murrumbidgee River and the regions of Kambah, Weston Creek, the Molonglo Valley and Belconnen, and thus likely to be of great interest to many members. Therefore there will be plenty of time allowed for questions after.
As an example of the values of the Western Edge Kim Farley will then present about the bird fauna of one of her favourite sites, the “Woodland of west Stromlo and includes Uriarra TSR.”
The area of this site is almost as big as Bluetts Block and very close to it and forms part of a corridor that runs from the Murrumbidgee over to the Molonglo. It is officially part of Stromlo Forest Park though fenced off from it and is an area of grassy box woodland with some remarkable old trees on it. It has a bird list of 108 species on eBird.