It's sleek, it's beautiful and the bronze has a patina that looks like "burnished leather".
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The public art sculpture Little Eagle Glyph was on Friday unveiled at Ginninderry, the burgeoning new community in the north-west of the ACT.
Artist G.W.Bot was commissioned by the ACT Government and the developer of Ginninderry to produce the work, which now sits on the corner of Pro Hart Drive and Stockhill Drive.
The 4.3-metre bronze sculpture represents the Little Eagle, declared a vulnerable species in the ACT and NSW, and one of the world's smallest eagles.
"It looks like a wedged-tailed eagle but is smaller and quieter and it's here that it lays its eggs and raises its young," she said.
G.W. Bot said she hoped the sculpture would evoke a sense of home and connectedness with landscape while providing a striking form against the horizon.
"To be able to work with bronze on this scale has been a terrific experience," she said.
The work is surrounded by granite into which G.W. has made carvings and the site also has sandstone blocks for people to sit and enjoy the work and surrounds.
"It's public art, it's for everyone," she said.
The name of the work also refers to "glyphs" a kind of alphabet of the Australian landscape she has developed over the years, symbols which show up on the sculpture and the surrounding rocks.
Little Eagle Glyph is perhaps G.W. Bot's most publicly accessible work. She also has a sculpture in the intensive care unit of the Calvary Hospital.
"They're dotted around the place, not hugely, but a number," she said of her work.
The work was launched on Friday Housing and Suburban Development Minister Yvette Berry.
"The Little Eagle, or Muliyan, is a Ngunnawal Totum that soars above adversity with courage and strength," Ms Berry said.
"The Little Eagle also risks becoming extinct in the ACT region which is why the ACT Government is focusing on their protection and survival.
"This Little Eagle sculpture will serve as an important reminder of the environment around us, its spiritual symbolism and connection to the Aboriginal community."
The Environment Directorate says researchers have installed cameras at a few of the Little Eagle's known nesting sites in the ACT to provide valuable information about breeding and chick rearing behaviour.
Little Eagle breeding season begins in August and the first of the chicks hatch in mid-October. Research found nests of nine pairs have been identified in the ACT and a further four pairs identified just over the border in NSW. Of these birds, eight raised a chick. Of the other pairs, one pair had their egg destroyed by a Currawong, one pair lost an egg during a storm and another either lost their egg or did not lay.
The new housing estate of Ginninderry, meanwhile, is a collaboration between the Suburban Land Agency and the Riverview Group, owned by the Corkhill family. Ginninderry starts from Holt and Macgregor. It comprises four new suburbs - three in the ACT and one in NSW. They will eventually house 30,000 people.
