Beach-foraging behaviour of Forest Ravens Corvus tasmanicus and an Australian Magpie Gymnorhina tibicen at Wilsons Promontory, Victoria

Observations are presented of Forest Ravens Corvus tasmanicus, and an Australian Magpie Gymnorhina tibicen, foraging by gleaning the sand on a beach.

The Archaeology of No man's land: Indigenous camps at Corindi Beach, mid-north coast New South Wales

At Corindi Beach on the mid-north coast of New South Wales are five twentieth century campsites located on the fringes of the township, beside the town racecourse, an area called by local Aboriginal people 'No man's land'. These campsites are important symbols of the self-sufficient lifestyle followed by the Corindi Beach Indigenous community in the twentieth century and are a physical reminder of cross-cultural relationships between local people over the last hundred years. In a collaborative research project with Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation, these places are being documented through studying oral history, the cultural landscape and the material culture left behind at these places.

Re-thinking multiculturalism: performing the Cronulla beach riot

Since 11 September 2001, Australia’s race relations have been an issue of significant cultural concern, particularly relations between Anglo-Celtic and Middle-Eastern Australians. Riots on Cronulla Beach, Sydney, in December 2005 heightened this concern. This paper looks at the events at Cronulla and the debates they catalysed about race relations in Australia, and examines how these discourses have been shaped by arguments from both the Right and the Left. Informed by the discourse of critical multiculturalism, we examine several performance-based arts activities that made the riots their subject matter and argue that these arts practices reflect a larger cultural concern about the currency of traditional forms of multiculturalism, and promote instead an emphasis on understanding racial conflict as a critical negotiation over shared territories and values.

Manage one beach or two? Movements and space-use of the threatened hooded plover (Thinornis rubricollis) in south-eastern Australia

An understanding of space use and dispersal of a wildlife species is essential for effective management. We examined the movements of a beach-dwelling, threatened population of hooded plover (Thinornis rubricollis) in southern central Victoria, Australia, by analysing sightings of colour-banded birds (4897 sightings; 194 birds tracked for up to 9 years). Most movements were relatively short (5050 ± 305 m), with 61.4% <1 km and 95.3% <20 km; they lacked directional or sexual bias. The extent of coastline used by individual birds was 47.8 ± 58.0 km. Regional differences in average distances moved by adults were apparent. For adults, movement rates (mean distance per day) were higher during the non-breeding season than during the breeding season. Non-breeding adults generally remained close to their partners (non-breeding, 456.3 ± 163.9 m; breeding, 148.2 ± 45.3 m). Largest flock sizes were recorded during the non-breeding period, and flocking was not uniformly distributed along the coast but appeared to be concentrated in particular locations. The frequency of pair cohesion (i.e. when the distance between partners was zero on a given day) was similar during the breeding (69.6%) and non-breeding seasons (67.7%). Breeding territories (kernel analysis) were 36.7 ± 5.7 ha and overlapped from year to year in all cases (23 pairwise comparisons; 47.9 ± 7.1% overlap). The high fidelity and constancy of territories confirms they warrant ongoing management investment, although the species relies on a matrix of breeding and non-breeding sites. The latter appear to occur in specific parts of the coast and warrant enhanced protection and more research attention. Fragmentation of the breeding population might occur where habitat is rendered unsuitable for > ~50 km.

Memory on the beach : an Australian memory (and hypnosis) laboratory

The memory (and hypnosis) lab at the University of New South Wales investigates a broad range of memory topics. We try to find innovative methods from cognitive and clinical psychology to address theoretical and empirical questions about memory. We aso use hypnosis as one major methodological tool in our investigations of memory (as well as other cognitive processes). In this paper, we review the projects currently underway in our memory (and hypnosis) lab.

Bondi Beach NSW, 28 May 2011, 11:06

This artwork is the result of the curators’ premise to invite an artist or artists to produce an initial image according to a brief. These initial images were then given to photographers to respond to and re-interpret the initial image. The curators produced a broadsheet publication and an online document cataloguing the works.