AWS staff member, Jenny Smits, has been running around Canberra undertaking various volunteer surveys for the Canberra Ornithological Group and the CSIRO. Surveys include targeted surveys for superb parrots within areas touted to become new suburbs in Canberra’s north, and landscape connectivity surveys where the role of paddock trees are being assessed in the movement of birds across the landscape. Jenny Smits was also able to help Chris Davey assess the breeding Silver Gull population on Spiniker Island, Lake Burley Griffin, on 14 December.