We were thrilled to be invited to open the Birds, Bees & Blooms exhibition at the Little Magpie Gallery here in Cowra last week. My mind went immediately to the subject of pollination and how I could bring such a broad and vital topic to life in no more than 15 minutes for this art-loving crowd.

It turns out that the best way to get peoples attention is to make sure you focus on the fact that we’re talking about reproduction!

Here are my notes from the speech I gave to promote Landcare & the projects we do:

Pollination 

Reproduction.  The transfer of genetic material from anther (male) to stigma  (female)

Sexual reproduction is Expensive! It consumes a lot of resources – time and energy. 

But one reason so many species favour it over cloning themselves because it creates variety and that diversity of expression, sometimes tiny sometimes dramatic, always interesting is what makes us who we are. And it’s that same blending of energy, ideas and cultures that makes art both so exciting and so necessary to us to thrive! 

I sometimes think of Landcare as a hive and Tracee and I as pollinators within our community.  

We buzz around, collecting & making sense of new ideas, research & ventures.

We meet new people & spend time listening as they open up about their hopes, dreams & plans for the little piece of the planet they call home. 

We then use our resources to help create the conditions for those ideas to come to life.

Speaking of ideas coming to life, we’ve a number of live projects at the moment that I’ll mention.

* Cowra is a great place for birdwatching & we design a lot of our projects to build on what’s already here, including to support the work of the Cowra Woodland Birds group who have been conducting thorough bird surveys here since 2001

* Saving our Species initiative – Superb Parrot project which both helps land holders protect paddock trees & supports the establishment of tree lanes and coridoors.

* Glossy Black Cockatoo plantings which this year were funded by BUPA Australia & Landcare Australia.

* Birds in the Club events jointly funded with Local Land Services. 

While I did feel like it went Ok, I’ll leave it to Tracee to give the final review:

“Amanda did a fantastic job with her tales of pollination. The art in this gallery is exquisite and well worth a visit if you are in Cowra. It was so lovely to be invited to be a part if this.”

If you’re ever in Cowra do pop in and see Inel at the Little Magpie Gallery. There’s so many nice things, we’re thinking of getting our salary’s direct deposited into there to save time 🙂