[A guest post from Kathy, one of our brilliant IDC volunteers!] 

Photo: Rodney Start  Source: Museum Victoria

On November 22, 2009, the Immigration Museum will celebrate Melbourne's Lebanese community. The Lebanese Cedar Festival showcases Lebanese culture through traditional music, dance, talks and films. Come along to enjoy roving entertainers, games such as touleh (backgammon) and lebanese coffee and sweets!

The Immigration Discovery Centre has a diverse range of resources focussing on migration and cultural diversity. We at the IDC have been having fun preparing for the Lebanese Festival. Resources include the Lebanese Resource Folder, a range of reference books and an Infosheet (prepared by one of our volunteers) on Lebanese migration to Australia. This contains a list of useful websites.

Infosheets have also been prepared on Dutch, German and Indonesian migration to Australia, with more to come soon...

Volunteers play an important role in the Immigration Discovery Centre, helping with things such as answering queries, preparing InfoSheets, and participating in community celebrations. If you'd like to find out more about volunteering with Museum Victoria, you can get more information here.

There are heaps of birdwatchers out there in the parks and gardens of Melbourne and they often bring us feathers they've come across to see if we can identify the type of bird they might have come from.

Normally, we consult the Collection Manager for the Ornithology & Mammalogy Collection to find out the type of bird that has recently lost its feathers, which is just as well, considering Philip's on-the-spot attempt at the identification of these feathers - according to Philip (Immigration Discovery Centre Coordinator, and NOT ornithologist) they belong to either a "tawny frog hen", a "mud-flapping goosehawk", or a "swan-thing".

Philip also made reference to a bird that he descibed as "round, and barks" - otherwise known to you and I as a magpie. Of course.

For tips on how to do a better job at birdwatching than Philip, have a look at the Museum Victoria Infosheets here and here. And if you do come across a feather of your own and you'd like to know what bird it came from, rest assured that your answer will come from the Collection Manager, and not Philip... just fill out an enquiry form here. 

Incidentally, these feathers belonged to either a female Collared Sparrowhawk or a male Brown Goshawk - and that's according to the Collection Manager.

Two old friends in the IDC, this morning, delighted to find a record of their voyages from the Netherlands to Australia via the website of the National Archives of Australia, and to pick up a Museum Victoria info-sheet about the ship on which they both travelled, several decades ago, two years apart. "I've got goosebumps now," said one of the women, watching the names of her parents materialise on the screen. Then she told me about how the voyage had been one long social event, and how her father had known "everyone" before boarding...

 
Photo: W. S. Anderson  Source: Musem Victoria