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Dec 7, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Gavin McGrath
"Ah … ahh … aaaaah."No outback scene seems complete without a corvid's cry. Corvids are birds that belong to the family Corvidae and in Australia are crows and ravens. Their cry is as much a soundtrack of regional Australia as the relentless drone of a billion insects. However, the owner of this mournful caw is often mistakenly identified. It is the voice, not of a crow, but of the Australian raven. And they are not the same.
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Nov 9, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Gavin McGrath
There is a weather-beaten gravestone among a thousand others at Ballarat's Old Cemetery. You could easily walk by it, such is its condition and modest location. You could easily miss the tragic tale of John Younger. The grave marker tells how John, the only son of Alexander and Ellen, was killed by wagon horses while crossing Macarthur St on April 6, 1871. He was just three years and 12 days old.
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Nov 8, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Gavin McGrath
A cute, vividly coloured native bee with a very distinctive buzz is the ABC's first Australian Insect of the Year. A total of 13,593 people voted in the inaugural ABC Insect of the Year poll. Just over 50.1 per cent (6,815 votes) chose the blue-banded bee (Amegilla cingulata) from a field of six insect finalists selected by an expert panel.
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Nov 8, 2024 | 
refresh.news | Gavin McGrath
The moth or the butterfly? The stick insect or the hoverfly? The beetle or the bee? Can you guess which is the inaugural ABC Australian Insect of the Year? Powered by the Echo RSS Plugin by CodeRevolution.
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Sep 28, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Gavin McGrath
It is hard to comprehend just how quick a World War II fighter plane is until it roars over you at just above tree-top level. Tyabb's small aerodrome on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula is home to a Curtis P-40 Kittyhawk. Powered by a Packard V12 engine with double the power of a modern Ferrari, it is capable of 550 kilometres per hour. The 80-year-old plane it is more than twice as fast as a garden-variety Cessna light aircraft.
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Sep 7, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Alice Walker |Gavin McGrath
If you spread out all the residents of the Victorian local government area of West Wimmera, each person would have more than 2 square kilometres to themselves. Hard up on the South Australian border, it's a remote shire – and the council is struggling with staffing. "We find especially the skilled workers area, we are advertising positions and we're getting very little response," Mayor Tim Meyer said.
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Aug 24, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Gavin McGrath
Mount Napier dominates the landscape just south of the Victorian town of Hamilton in western Victoria. The 440-metre-high volcanic cone slumbers amid the grasslands and manna gum forests of the Western District. It is classified as "dormant" by some, but that would be generous. It is unlikely to wake. Victoria's dormant and extinct volcanoes probably won't explode back into life, but they serve as a reminder the Western District is an active volcanic region.
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Jul 20, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Gavin McGrath
A lonely sentinel warning sailors of impending danger and guiding them safely on their voyage ... the keeper may have been officially retired three decades ago, but the lighthouse itself continues to stand vigilant. There are about 150 heritage lighthouses dotted along the Australian seaboard. Sixty-five of them still serve as active beacons, complementing an additional 423 navigational devices.
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Jul 6, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Gavin McGrath
Many Australian orchids have a peculiar charm but could this be the most charming of them all? The charming spider orchid leads a certain type of wasp on a merry dance. The bamboozled insect is seduced by the orchid's scent, enticed onto the flower's labellum, and unwittingly becomes the orchid's tool for propagation. Happily, no wasps are harmed in this deception. The spider orchid emits a pheromone that mimics that given off by a female thynnid wasp.
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Jun 7, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Gavin McGrath |Rebekah Lowe
In 1972 Gough Whitlam was prime minister, Peter Brock had conquered the Hardie-Ferodo 500 (500 miles) at Bathurst for the first time, and you could have driven a Holden Monaro GTS out of a new car dealership for just under $7,500. Just over half a century later, that same Monaro has changed hands for $346,185 at auction. Nostalgia definitely sells.
