Latest news with #Wolstenholme
Canberra Times
15-05-2025
- General
- Canberra Times
Superb Fairy-wren: why it's our favourite of Australia's 'feathered jewels'
One hundred years ago, Harry Wolstenholme, son of the suffragette Maybanke Anderson, was an avid birdwatcher who did most of his watching in his garden in the northern Sydney suburb of Wahroonga. Sometimes, he backyard-birded alone; sometimes in company with birding legends of the day such as Keith Hindwood, Alec Chisholm, and Norman Chaffer. They not only admired Wahroonga's birdlife; they meticulously recorded it and published their observations in the Emu. A glance through early issues of that journal reveals numerous articles on urban birds. One, by Wolstenholme in 1922, was a bird list for his suburb, with annotations combining affectionate appreciations with astute observations on each species. Superb Fairy-wrens (which he called Blue Wren-Warblers) he found especially charming, delighting in the 'bright warblings of these lovely little birds' that could 'be heard in every garden as they hop and flit about among the small plants and creepers'. Wolstenholme's own garden was an avian haven, arranged to encourage the birds to interact with him. To promote that process, he fed them, and, like others at the time, he had no compunctions about acknowledging the fact. Writing in the Emu in 1929, he explained how he fostered friendship with Superb Fairy-wrens: 'These little fellows, like many of the garden birds, are very fond of cheese. While writing these notes on the verandah I have had to stop now and then to throw morsels to a pair of birds that came close below me in expectation of getting some.' Wolstenholme not only fed his avian friends; he encouraged them to perch on his fingers as they did so. Quite a few obliged. His 1929 Emu article included a photograph of a Grey Shrike-thrush eating from his hand. He even fed a Lewin's Honeyeater by holding sugared water in his cupped palm while the bird perched on his fingers to lap up the sweet liquid. This was hands-on birding.
CBC
10-04-2025
- CBC
Safety striping installed years late at Lincoln Fields station amid ongoing coroner's inquest
Social Sharing Safety striping that should have been placed by the end of 2022 on the canopy of a passenger shelter at OC Transpo's Lincoln Fields bus station did not get installed until earlier this week — amid an ongoing coroner's inquest into a fatal bus collision involving a similar canopy in 2019. The work did not get done earlier because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the inquest heard on Thursday. On Jan. 11, 2019, a packed OC Transpo double-decker slammed into a Transitway bus shelter at Westboro station. Three people — Judy Booth, Bruce Thomlinson and Anja Van Beek — died in the crash. Many others were injured, triggering a flurry of lawsuits. While the city accepted civil responsibility for the crash, the bus driver was charged with 38 counts of dangerous driving causing death or bodily harm. She was acquitted of all of them in a judge-only trial in 2021. Catch up on the inquest here The inquest has heard that 13 canopies similar to the one central to the Westboro crash are still standing at seven other stations in Ottawa. The canopy at Westboro was problematic because, as an engineer found after the crash, it jutted into a portion of the Transitway's "clear zone" — an area outside the roadway where fixed objects can create a hazard to vehicles leaving the road. WATCH | Looking back on the crash and its lingering impacts: Inquest examines Westboro bus crash that killed 3 8 days ago Duration 4:23 The collision sparked a flurry of lawsuits against the City of Ottawa and prompted a criminal trial that saw the driver acquitted. Now a public inquest is looking at what happened with fresh eyes. On the recommendation of another engineer, the city placed yellow and black high-visibility striping on the edge of the Westboro canopy in 2021, though the station was ultimately taken offline in June 2022 because it was being prepared as an LRT stop. The city also planned in 2022 to placing striping at all stations with similar canopies as Westboro by the end of 2022, as shown in an internal report shared during the inquest. That work did not happen. City transit planner Matthew Wolstenholme testified Thursday that it was only last week, early in the inquest, that the city reviewed the clear zones at the seven stations. On Monday, striping was placed at a canopy at Lincoln Fields station, he said. The other six stations had offsets between the curb face and canopies that were in line with what the original engineer looking at safety after the Westboro crash recommended, which was between 1.2 metres and 1.8 metres, Wolstenholme said. At Westboro station, the offset between the curb face and the canopy was between 0.5 metres and 0.7 metres. At Lincoln Fields, it measures 0.35 metres to 0.5 metres, Wolstenholme said. "Can you help me understand why this wasn't done [earlier]?" inquest lawyer Alessandra Hollands asked of the plan to place striping at all seven stations with canopies similar to Westboro. It's not that it wasn't seen as important, but there were other factors at play, Wolstenholme said. "For example, we were working to keep our customers and our operators safe through the pandemic and a lot of staff time and resources were allocated to that," he said. The inquest continues Thursday afternoon.
