75-626: Bird Observation & Conservation Australia ( BOCA ) was a club established on 12 April 1905 by members of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU) in Melbourne , Victoria , as the Bird Observers Club . Although inactive for many years, in 1927 it was revived and subsequently active until the end of 2011 when it merged with Birds Australia to form BirdLife Australia . It published
150-548: A 'Wattle Club' in Victoria, to promote public interest in wattles and organise bush excursions on the first day of September every year. With the advent of Federation in 1901, Campbell began campaigning to have one of the wattle species, the Golden Wattle Acacia pycnantha , nominated as Australia's national floral emblem (in the same way as Ireland has the shamrock, Scotland the thistle, and so on). The matter
225-767: A Colonial Member of the British Ornithologists' Union in 1902, and an Honorary Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union in 1904 and this international recognition was important for the Australian ornithological community as a whole. Two leading Australian ornithological organisations owed their existence, at least in part, to Campbell, who was instrumental in their creation: the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU) founded in 1901, and
300-613: A committee to implement the former. Subsequently, in September 1966, such a reform committee was appointed under the chairmanship of Keith Hindwood . However, the lack of agreement between committee members led to its disbandment in August 1967, less than a year later. The RAOU was in crisis. Up to this point, the Emu had been the only serial publication produced by the RAOU for all members, and
375-401: A demonstration of the state of the art of photography in the 1880s but also a detailed historical record of conditions for the pioneering naturalists, who were sometimes accompanied on their expeditions by wives and children. For example, two of Campbell's photographs of the 1887-1888 FNCV expedition to King Island, Tasmania show the accommodation on the near-uninhabited island. Only the family of
450-501: A head at the 1935 campout at Marlo , eastern Victoria , when a museum ornithologist, George Mack , provocatively shot a scarlet robin at its nest, which had been under observation by the party. This caused outrage among many members and was followed by a decision of the RAOU Council to appoint a committee to reconsider the question of collecting. The result was a policy that collecting of specimens, except under government permit,
525-505: A lengthy article in The Argus , providing many details of life in rural Victoria in the mid-1800s. Migrant families experienced for the first time the most basic living conditions, epidemics of serious diseases (for both humans and animals), and destructive natural hazards including fire, flood and drought. Landowners were also faced with another insuperable problem - the vanishing of their farm labourers whenever news of another discovery
600-493: A lone emu to an emu with a family of chicks, reflecting new growth in the size and number of its regional groups. 1996 also saw the first Southern Hemisphere Ornithological Conference (SHOC), held in Albany, Western Australia . This was an initiative of Professor Brian Collins, RAOU president at the time. Another SHOC was held at Griffith University , Brisbane , in 2000 before the RAOU refined its conference concept and initiated
675-621: A quarterly journal, Australian Field Ornithology , and a quarterly newsletter, the Bird Observer . It had a cooperative relationship with the Land for Wildlife program, a voluntary conservation scheme for private land in Victoria, which was instigated by two prominent club members, Ellen McCulloch and Reg Johnson , established in 1981, and coordinated by the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment. In 1991
750-470: A speech for the RAOU, which was read out posthumously. Campbell is buried in the cemetery in St. Kilda, in what has become a somewhat dilapidated grave. He lies in the company of his father Archibald James Campbell, his mother Catherine Pinkerton, his sister Catherine Jane Campbell, his first wife, Elizabeth Melrose Anderson, their daughter Elizabeth Victoria Campbell, and his second wife, Blanche Duncan. Besides
825-568: A view to merging the two organisations. On 21 May 2011 members of both BOCA and Birds Australia voted by an overwhelming majority at their respective Annual General Meetings to merge the two organisations into one entity to be named BirdLife Australia . This article about an organisation in Australia is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union The Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union ( RAOU ), now part of BirdLife Australia ,
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#1732793873698900-562: Is a branch of ornithology that is devoted to the study of bird eggs and nests as an aid to identifying individual birds, and of learning about their movements and distribution across the country. The fact that Campbell was invited to speak at the FNCV indicates that, by the age of 30, he had become a recognised expert on Australian birds, nests and eggs. The FNCV was established in 1880 and is Victoria's oldest field naturalists club. Members are professional scientists, students and amateurs who study
975-534: The Emu but were happy to receive the RAOU Newsletter that contained all the informal in-house news that the pre-reform Emu had carried. In 1991, the newsletter was renamed Wingspan , a glossy colour magazine received by all members. By 2004, fewer than 20% of RAOU members subscribed to the Emu . In 1996, the RAOU formally adopted the name Birds Australia for most public purposes, and updated its logo from
1050-420: The A. J. Campbell Collection . Box 3 holds a scrapbook containing 77 articles by Campbell that were published in the "Australasian" 1893–1900. The journal Emu was published by the RAOU. Campbell contributed many articles to it, whilst also acting as co-editor for thirteen years. Books: Campbell, AJ 1883, Nests and Eggs of Australian birds, embracing papers on "Oology of Australian birds" read before
1125-429: The Emu , was another blow. He had edited and managed the publication of the journal for over 30 years, but had not prepared for his successor. Those who did succeed him during the 1960s struggled to maintain, let alone develop, the journal in a way that the membership and the changing times demanded, and its issue, due to problems with the printers, was becoming erratic. Moreover, the accounts were falling into disarray and
1200-699: The Victorian Wattle Club in 1899 and the Bird Observers Club in 1905. Campbell was active in the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria from its inception in 1880, leading pioneering expeditions and writing for their journal. He wrote the classic field guide to oology (a branch of ornithology) in Australia: Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds , published in 1901. Campbell (the ornithologist) shared his personal names, Archibald James, with his father, so to avoid confusion
1275-477: The (Victorian) Bird Observers Club founded in 1905. After birds, Campbell's most intense fascination was with Australian native flora, and particularly wattle trees ( acacias ) of which there are currently thought to be 1070 species. Enthusiasm for wattles existed amongst naturalists in Tasmania, South Australia and New South Wales, as well as in Victoria. Campbell's advocacy resulted in the formation in 1899 of
1350-778: The Civil Service Examination. The Victorian Customs Service was amalgamated with that of the other states in 1901, at the time of Federation, creating the Department of Trade and Customs (Australia) . Campbell remained with the Service throughout his working life, until his retirement in July 1914. In the introduction to his presentation to the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria (FNCV) in 1883 Campbell explains that his topic, Oology (or oölogy),
1425-527: The Commonwealth and all states and territories that the first day of Spring (1 September) should be Wattle Day throughout Australia. Much of the evidence for Campbell's innovative work as a photographer is held by Museum Victoria , having been donated by Campbell himself, on 22 December 1915: This collection consists of 2,772 images taken by Archibald James Campbell. These are made up of a combination of black and white prints and glass negatives. Many of
1500-619: The Director of Nature Study in the Victorian Education Department . In 1910, the union was given permission by King George V , newly ascended to the throne, to use the prefix "Royal" on what had hitherto been simply the "Australasian Ornithologists Union". Early in 1913, the first Official Checklist of the Birds of Australia was published as a supplement to the Emu . For many years, the compilation of checklists and
1575-709: The Englishman who had become the pioneer of Australian ornithology, John Gould (1804-1881). Both men shared an absence of secondary and tertiary education; and both undertook self-education so thoroughly that they became pre-eminent in their fields, and the books they wrote quickly became the standard scientific texts on their chosen subjects. Gould's Birds of Australia provided a foundation for Campbell's 1883 presentation and 1901 book on Nests and eggs of Australian birds . Where Gould described many species of Australian birds new to science, Campbell added innovative information about eggs and nests. Both writers made use of
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#17327938736981650-713: The Pinkerton family, James, retired to Bacchus Marsh in 1862, and the Campbell family returned to Melbourne. On 18 February 1896, at the age of 16, Campbell obtained full-time work in the Victorian Government Customs Service as a "Landing waiter" (although several biographical articles give his job name as "landing weigher"). His next significant career step was confirmed on 12 September 1874 when his name appeared in The Argus (Melbourne) newspaper's list (page 7) of those who had passed
1725-716: The Victorian Education Department, but moved to the rural Werribee River region in 1851 at a time when it was beginning to be exploited for agricultural and pastoral purposes. Before that, the Pinkerton extended family of twelve people had arrived in Melbourne on the barque Superb , in December 1839. By 1852, the Australian Electoral Roll records that several members of the Pinkerton family owned large tracts of freehold land on
1800-526: The Werribee River, used mainly to pasture sheep for the wool trade. In that year Archibald James Campbell married Catherine Pinkerton. The first of their children was their son, AJ Campbell, born in February 1853. William Campbell, Campbell's uncle, married Margaret Pinkerton (1829-1920), Campbell's aunt, in 1864. Years later, Margaret Pinkerton's 90th birthday was celebrated, and was described in
1875-498: The administrative assistance of the CSIRO ), and with the organisation of excursions for delegates. The appointment in 1974 of Tommy Garnett as RAOU secretary was also a move that assisted in bringing order to the growing administrative demands of the evolving organisation. An essential part of the revolution within the RAOU in the late 1960s, and its evolution during the 1970s was a strong push to carry out scientific field studies with
1950-659: The administrative backlog was becoming worse each year. There was increasing criticism from members, especially from the ACT branch, which contained a high proportion of professional scientists as members. In a letter sent to the RAOU Council meeting in July 1966, the ACT branch strongly criticised the standard of the Emu , the administrative disorder, and the passivity regarding conservation and field studies. It finished by proposing two formal motions to (i) adopt active policies for organising research, publicity and education, and to (ii) set up
2025-405: The annual "campouts" of several days' duration, which gave members the opportunity to meet and to collect specimens and eggs. Many RAOU members in the early 20th century called themselves " oologists ", though the distinction between the notionally scientific discipline of oology and simple egg-collecting was blurred. Identification of any but the most common and distinctive species usually entailed
2100-399: The avifauna of a continent, stretched the resources of the organisation beyond reasonable limits, but the RAOU was forced to grow in the process. The period of the first Atlas also coincided with a move to establish bird observatories as field research centres. These were Eyre in 1976, Rotamah Island in 1979, Barren Grounds in 1982, and Broome in 1988. Later the emphasis shifted from
2175-808: The bird conservation challenges of those regions. These are: The RAOU / Birds Australia has Special Interest Groups that focus attention on particular groups of birds that have special study and conservation needs. These are: Four bird observatories were established by the RAOU in order to provide accommodation and act as bases for research, education and recreation, in areas of particular interest and bird richness. Two of these, Barren Grounds Bird Observatory in NSW, and Rotamah Island Bird Observatory in Victoria, have since been closed for economic reasons. The two remaining observatories, both in Western Australia, are: The RAOU has established two reserves, through
2250-450: The birds themselves, reflecting the dominance of egg and skin collecting in ornithology of the time. On 12 April 1905, some Melbourne members formed the Bird Observers Club to facilitate more frequent and less formal meetings and field-trips. At this time, membership of the union was a prerequisite for membership of the club. In 1916, when the union acquired its own room for meetings and storage of donated specimens, it became impossible for
2325-486: The club expanded its name to become the Bird Observers Club of Australia ( BOCA ) to give itself a national rather than a local focus. In May 2007, at the Annual General Meeting, the membership voted to change the name of the organisation again to Bird Observation & Conservation Australia to "more properly present it and the work it does", while retaining the familiar acronym BOCA. Its head office
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2400-425: The club to share the use of the room. This led to the club becoming inactive for the next few years, though it was successfully revived as an independent entity in 1927. In 1907, the issue of bird conservation was raised prominently with the publication, in the Emu , of articles and photographs by Arthur Mattingley depicting starving egret nestlings in a breeding colony where the parent birds had been shot for
2475-414: The collection of specimens to be made into study skins. Modern field guides did not exist and few people could afford the massive multi-volume, lavishly illustrated handbooks of John Gould and Gregory Mathews . However, both Archibald J. Campbell and Alfred North had produced comprehensive guides to what was known about the nests and eggs of Australian birds, with illustrations of the eggs rather than
2550-524: The congress (i.e. the principal organiser) was Dr Harold Frith who was not only one of the hardliners of the 'scientists' faction of the pre-reform RAOU, but had also threatened to start a competing group with its own journal if the reforms had not proceeded. Ultimately the RAOU contributed to the success of the IOC through provision of funding (along with the Australian Academy of Science (AAC) and
2625-506: The decision by the RAOU Council in 1968 to allow for a type of membership without a subscription to Emu . The next step was when Jack Hyett resigned as editor of Emu in 1968, the ACT Branch nominated Stephen Marchant for the editorship, and he was elected unopposed. Marchant was editor for the next twelve years and he transformed Emu into the lean and rigorous journal the 'scientists' wanted. With regard to other necessary reforms,
2700-615: The design which is still seen in the coat of arms, and was 'granted' under royal warrant by King George V. Efforts were made to unify the wattle-enthusiasts across Australian by creating the Wattle Federation of Australasia, inaugurated in Melbourne in January 1913, as reported in the Examiner , on Fri 17 Jan 1913, Page 7, in an article entitled 'The Wattle Federation': Three delegates from each state were invited to attend
2775-415: The establishment of field centres to the purchase of large properties as habitat conservation , with the acquisition of Gluepot Reserve in 1997 and Newhaven Reserve in 2000. Between the beginning and the end of the first Atlas project RAOU membership grew from fewer than a thousand to over two thousand. Not all Atlassers became members, but many did, and most of them were not interested in subscribing to
2850-488: The first Australasian Ornithological Conference (AOC), hosted with Charles Sturt University at Bathurst, New South Wales in December 2001. Also from 2001, the direct management and publication of the Emu was outsourced to CSIRO Publishing , which already handled a large stable of international and Australian scientific journals. Other projects, such as the Australian Bird Count (1989–1995), followed
2925-784: The first Atlas. However, the project that would dominate the period from the early 1980s until 2006 was the Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds (HANZAB). Financially it was the biggest project of all, and one that strained RAOU resources more than any other. The need to provide adequate working conditions for HANZAB staff was one factor that forced another move of its head office to larger premises in Riversdale Road, Hawthorn in 1994. Since 2003 Birds Australia has produced an annual State of Australia's Birds (SOAB) report. The reports collate and disseminate information on trends in bird populations to inform Australians of
3000-443: The first edition ensured that a series of further editions and reprints continued into the 1960s. This was followed in 1931 with the first publication of Neville Cayley 's What Bird is That? , further editions of which continued to be published into the 1980s. These books were focussed on bird identification rather than collecting and were affordable to the general public. They reflected the shifting mood in amateur ornithology, through
3075-464: The first half of the 20th century, from collecting to observation. The annual campouts were increasingly being seen as opportunities for bird-watching , photography and non-destructive studies. During the 1933 campout near Moree, New South Wales , extensive egg-collecting by the oologists present aroused much criticism from other members; the egg-collectors were later formally censured. This growing split between members' attitudes to bird-study came to
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3150-470: The function, at which the wattle federation was started. Tasmania alone failed to send delegates, but the promoters, finding that [Tasmanians] Dr. Purdy and Mr. Seager were in Melbourne, invited these gentlemen to attend ... The Prime Minister (Right Hon. A. Fisher) presided at the inaugural dinner. - Examiner, 1913 Another milestone was passed on 19 April 1984 when the wattle's green and gold colours became Australia's national colours. A formal proclamation
3225-636: The granting of the title of Fellow of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (FRAOU) to a small and limited number of individuals. It also recognises excellence in contributions to ornithological knowledge through annual awards: the D.L. Serventy Medal for outstanding published work on birds in the Australasian region, and the John Hobbs Medal for major contributions to amateur ornithology. Archibald J. Campbell Archibald James Campbell (18 February 1853 – 11 September 1929)
3300-673: The history of the RAOU came to an end. In March 2007, the RAOU moved its National Office to new, smaller premises in the Green Building at 60 Leicester Street, Carlton , Melbourne. On 21 May 2011, members of both Birds Australia and Bird Observation & Conservation Australia (BOCA) voted by an overwhelming majority at their respective annual general meetings to merge the two organisations into one entity, to be named BirdLife Australia . The RAOU / Birds Australia has several Regional Groups that cater for members based in particular geographic regions of Australia, as well as looking at
3375-710: The images of birds and nests were used by Campbell in his book Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, published in 1900. There is also a significant number of images taken by Campbell on his various field trips around Australia with groups such as the Ornithologists Union, Victorian Field Naturalists, The Working Men's College Photographic Club and his family. - Museum Victoria. His photographs provide not only
3450-485: The international trade in plumes for millinery . The photographs were widely reprinted internationally as part of a campaign to halt the trade. As a result, the fashion for wearing plumes in hats and head-dresses changed and the market collapsed. In 1909, the union was one of the first major sponsors of the Gould League of Bird Lovers , which was founded by Jessie McMichael and supported by John Albert Leach ,
3525-594: The involvement of volunteers. The first of the major projects undertaken was the Atlas of Australian Birds . Fieldwork for this project took place over five calendar years 1977-1981 and transformed the organisation. Pauline Reilly was RAOU president and an enthusiastic proponent of the Atlas in the years leading up to the fieldwork phase of the project and she was subsequently Chair of the Atlas Committee which oversaw
3600-479: The lighthouse keeper and one kangaroo hunter were on the island to lend assistance to the group during their nineteen-day visit. As Campbell relates, when provisions were depleted and they began to run out of flour "a little bran was mixed, to stay its rapid progress. As the flour became thinner so the bran increased; finally, the last " mash " was all bran." After retiring from employment, in 1914, Campbell's life continued to be filled with activity and events. After
3675-499: The loss of his first wife, Elizabeth Melrose Anderson (1855-1915), Campbell married again, to Blanche Duncan (1870-1953), and took up residence in Box Hill (which was still a rural area at that time). He continued his expeditions and his writing, and one of his retirement projects was to prepare a new book of text and photographs entitled Golden wattle, our national floral emblem . He died on 12 September 1929, after having prepared
3750-447: The members. There were those who enjoyed the clubby atmosphere of the campouts and the comfortable, sometimes chatty, style of the Emu . Others, including those professionally involved in ornithology, as well as the more scientifically rigorous amateurs, wanted the RAOU to be scientifically credible and to publish an ornithological journal that merited international recognition. The sudden death of Charles Bryant in 1960, while editor of
3825-590: The names of Council officers between 1968 and 1972 shows almost complete replacement, with most change occurring between 1969 and 1970. The process of renewal was painful and the sense of alienation, for some, was permanent. One test of the reformed RAOU was to be the extent of its involvement with the International Ornithological Congress (IOC), held in Canberra in 1974 with about 800 delegates attending. The secretary-general of
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#17327938736983900-475: The natural world by going out into the environment. Since the establishment of the club, members have regularly arranged field trips for research, published scientific papers in their journal the Victorian Naturalist , and have taken an active and public role in promoting conservation and protection. Campbell had close working relationships with other prominent scientists in the FNCV, amongst whom
3975-453: The new president, Allan McEvey , set up a new review committee of two, Dom Serventy and himself. Serventy, a scientist with the CSIRO, was the principal writer of the review report and he addressed both the need for a sense of what the RAOU should be doing, and the structure that would allow it to do so. Although there was considerable vocal opposition to the reform proposals (including cutting
4050-421: The newest technology available to illustrate their scientific data. Until 1840, Gould's pictures of birds were drawn and painted by his wife Elizabeth Coxon ; many were reproduced by means of the recently invented technique of hand-painted lithographs ; forty years later, Campbell's images of nests, eggs and habitat were created by the cutting-edge technology of photography. In his text Campbell frequently refers
4125-505: The number of people on Council from an unwieldy forty to just nine) the report was ratified by Council in April 1969 and adopted at an Extraordinary General Meeting in June 1969, with the vote being over 80% in favour. Later that year came the first issue of the RAOU Newsletter , a publication that would evolve to become the magazine Wingspan . A perhaps unavoidable consequence of the reforms
4200-558: The ornithologist will be referred to throughout this article as "Campbell", whilst his father will be named in full. Campbell's parents were Scottish , Archibald James Campbell (1817–1872) and his wife Catherine ( née Pinkerton) (1833–1882) both having been born in the Gorbals area of Glasgow . Travelling alone, the 22 year-old Archibald James Campbell sailed from Liverpool aboard the barque Statesman on 4 February 1840, disembarking in Melbourne on 21 June. He obtained employment in
4275-493: The production of regular supplements to them was a constant activity, and the position of Chairman of the Checklist Committee was an important one. Almost immediately after the first Checklist was published, it was apparent that work needed to be continued towards a second edition, eventually published in 1926. 1911 was marked by the publication of An Australian Bird Book , by John Albert Leach . The popularity of
4350-600: The project. The first paid staff members of the RAOU were appointed in connection with the project, and the first property, a small house in Dryburgh Street, North Melbourne , acquired as premises for it in 1976. It soon became obvious that the house was too small and an upgrade was necessary; it was replaced in 1979 by a house in Gladstone Street, Moonee Ponds . The logistics of managing a national bird atlassing project, with 3000 volunteer atlassers mapping
4425-411: The publisher of its journal, the Emu . In 2012, the RAOU merged with Bird Observation & Conservation Australia to form BirdLife Australia . The RAOU was the instigator of the Atlas of Australian Birds project. It also published (in association with Oxford University Press ) the encyclopaedic Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds . Its quarterly colour membership magazine
4500-591: The purchase of large pastoral leases , in order to protect extensive areas of important bird habitat. They are: Newhaven Reserve was sold to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy in 2007. The RAOU retains access rights for its members and a say in monitoring and research on the reserve through the Newhaven Management Committee. The RAOU has always recognised service to the organisation and to ornithology through
4575-610: The reader to Gould's illustrations of the birds that he (Campbell) is writing about, e.g. in his entry on page 87 for the Magpie Lark Grallina cyanoleuca Campbell notes that the bird is illustrated in: "Figure - Gould: Birds of Australia, fol., vol.ii, plate 54". However, he does also include in his own text several coloured illustrations (that of the Rose robin , for instance), drawn by artists. Campbell received great acclaim during his lifetime, such as being invited to be
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#17327938736984650-462: The scientific associations that he helped to bring into existence and which still exist in one form or another, Campbell left a large body of written and photographic work. Some of the key texts are mentioned below: Articles: The FNCV journal the Victorian Naturalist has two notable articles from Campbell which later also appeared in the Australasian : The National Library of Australia has many of Campbell's papers, in their collection entitled
4725-465: The status of their birds. The 2003 and 2008 editions of SOAB are five-yearly overviews, while the other editions are themed on various aspects of Australian avifauna (e.g. SOAB 2010 was themed on Birds and Islands). Some of the material presented in SOAB is extracted from Birds Australia projects, notably the Atlas of Australian Birds project. The final volume of HANZAB was published in 2006, and an era in
4800-595: The union was Archibald J. Campbell . Its founding membership was 137, including six women and 10 overseas members. The first general meeting of members was held in Adelaide on 1 November 1901, where office-bearers were elected. The first president was Colonel William Vincent Legge of Tasmania , the secretary was Dudley Le Souef , the treasurer Robert Hall , and the editors Archibald J. Campbell and Henry Kendall . Such general meetings, soon termed "congresses" were held annually thereafter and were normally accompanied by
4875-548: Was Wingspan . The RAOU is the Australian Partner of BirdLife International , and had the motto "Conservation through Knowledge". The RAOU was formally constituted (as the Australasian Ornithologist's Union ) on 1 July 1901 in Melbourne , Victoria, following a series of informal meetings held by a small group of amateur ornithologists from 1896. The driving force behind the formation of
4950-427: Was Australia's largest non-government, non-profit, bird conservation organisation. It was founded in 1901 to promote the study and conservation of the native bird species of Australia and adjacent regions, making it Australia's oldest national birding association. In 1996, the organisation adopted the trading name of Birds Australia for most public purposes, while retaining its original name for legal purposes and as
5025-566: Was Professor Walter Baldwin Spencer , head of the Department of Biology at Melbourne University, and Dudley Le Souёf , an ornithologist and zoo director. Le Souёf in particular shared the same special interests as Campbell, being a photographer and presenter of "lantern lectures", the owner of an impressive egg collection, and working with Campbell in establishing the RAOU and its journal, Emu . Campbell also freely acknowledged his debt to
5100-463: Was an Australian civil servant in the Victorian (later Australian) government Customs Service. However, his international reputation rests on his expertise as an amateur ornithologist , naturalist, and photographer. He was one of the principal founders of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU) in 1901, and served as its president in 1909 and 1928. He was also a founder member of
5175-467: Was by far the biggest financial cost to the organisation. For a majority of members the receipt of the journal was the only direct contact they had with the RAOU. Yet the content of Emu was being assailed from both the 'scientists' who wanted more rigour and less in-house material, and from the 'amateurs' who disliked the scientific language of many papers. The long-term solution would be to cater separately for both groups. The start of this process came with
5250-676: Was contentious - R.T.Baker campaigned just as hard for the flower of the Waratah Telopea speciosissima to be chosen. However, the Waratah has remained as the floral emblem of the state of New South Wales. The official proclamation concerning the Golden Wattle as emblem did not occur for many decades (during the Australian Bicentenary celebrations in 1988) but on 19 September 1912 it was incorporated into
5325-586: Was in Nunawading (an eastern suburb of greater Melbourne) in Victoria, but it had sub-groups across eastern Australia. By 2011 BOCA had 49 branches and affiliated groups, mainly in the eastern states of Australia, as well as a specialist group (PhotoBOCA) for those interested in bird photography. It also owned and managed the Clarkesdale Bird Sanctuary at Linton, Victoria . During 2009 discussions commenced with Birds Australia with
5400-468: Was made by the Governor-General, Sir Ninian Stevens, that: "green and gold ... shall be the national colours of Australia for use on all occasions on which such colours are customarily used". Following the 1988 official selection of the Golden Wattle as Australia's floral emblem, the final step of the journey that Campbell had begun in 1901 was taken when, in 1992, consensus was reached amongst
5475-599: Was not acceptable, and that no collecting should take place at campouts anyway. Membership of the RAOU, after reaching a peak in the 1920s, went into a decline during the Great Depression and the Second World War , and there were difficulties meeting the costs of printing the Emu . After the War, membership numbers began to rise again. However, during the 1950s and 1960s, there was further division between
5550-486: Was reported in the Australian gold rushes of the 1850s and early 1860s. In addition, the cost of living increased dramatically because of the influx of diggers, and gold soon displaced wool as Australia's chief export commodity. Catherine and Margaret Pinkerton lost their mother, two siblings and a young cousin between 1855 and 1858, and Campbell's brother John Ecker Campbell died in 1860, aged 14 months. The head of
5625-446: Was the alienation of some of the members and Council officers. The drastic reduction in the number of Councillors meant that many regional positions in particular no longer existed. Some members left the organisation and many transferred their active loyalty to the Bird Observers Club . Independent regional groups were established to cater for those who felt disenfranchised by the new order, replacing previous RAOU branches. A comparison of
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