After comparing the brass cricket buckle he found on Gungahlin Hill earlier this year with similar buckles in antique catalogues, Michael realised part of it was missing and recently returned to the location of his find, hoping it was still partially buried in the dirt.

However in his search, which involved hours scouring bushland, he didn't locate the missing part of the buckle, but instead uncovered a CSIRO bird band.

"There was no bird, just the tiny aluminium band partly covered in dirt," reveals Michael, who promptly reported the find to the Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme (ABBBS).

And he's glad he did for it turns out the band is one of the oldest ever recovered in the scheme's 67-year history.

"The band was put on a male magpie back in 1956, and was re-recorded a number of times up to 1958," reports a spokesperson for the scheme, which was established to support research into the movements and life histories of Australia's bird and bat species, adding "the band was found about 2km from where the bird was originally banded."

Recovering a band no longer on a bird is indeed a rare occurrence, with the spokesperson reporting that "less than 1 per cent of all recoveries are made this way."

"Whilst 64 years between banding and recovery of the band is a remarkable figure, unfortunately it does not tell us much about the potential life span of the bird, which was one of the primary objectives of banding it in the first place," reports the spokesperson, adding, "the bird that carried this band may have died 60 years ago, and it simply took this long to recover the band."

Apparently these types of recoveries are excluded from analyses into survival and lifespan as they give a misleading impression that a species lives for much longer than it does. For this reason, they are also excluded from display on the ABBBS online database.

Despite this, Michael is tickled pink with his find. "The bird was banded by the late Dr Robert Carrick, CSIRO scientist and authority on the magpie who was also instrumental in setting up Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve," he says.

Did You Know? Average movement of Australian magpies (between banding site and recovery site) is 7km and average elapsed time between banding and recovery is just over two years.

From the record books

The longest recovery of a band recovered on a bird belongs to a Short-tailed Shearwater that was recovered more than 48 years after banding.

More on the Canadian flagpole which was removed earlier last month due to safety concerns.

"I remember that 'she' graced the grounds of the former Mulwala Government Hostel (located near the Civic Pool) for some time during the 1950s, with 'inmates' using it to sit on," reports John Howard of O'Connor, adding "when the Canadian PM's visit was imminent a hasty erection of the pole was arranged."

According to John, "the public was told that the pole, a single spruce tree, would be rotated to allow for even exposure to the weather conditions." A spokesperson for the National Capital Authority (NCA) reports "there is no known documentation about rotating the flagpole regularly. It was a massive flagpole and would have been a major exercise in lifting and rotating, as we've found out recently."

The flagpole is currently being held in a compound on the lake foreshore for further examination to understand how much of the wood is useable into the future. The NCA will continue liaising with the High Commission of Canada on future options for the use of the timber and a possible replacement flagpole.

Did You Know? The statue of Mary Poppins in Glebe Park, Bowral, has been turning mysteriously twice a year (usually to coincide with the equinoxes) since she arrived in the park in 2013. "We've done a lot of research on how she moves but I think it can only be one thing... magic," reports Paul McShane who was involved in the statue's original installation as a nod to Penny Travers, author of Mary Poppins, who lived in Bowral during her childhood in the early 1900s.

It seems an old steam engine and a recently pilfered 1950s truck aren't the old only relics in northern Kosciuszko National Park to attract extra attention since becoming more conspicuous following last summer's fires ('Ashes to Ashes: A fisherman's find', November 14, 2020).

Renowned high country photographer Michelle Brown and her husband, Ian, report "there are quite a few old cars up in that part of the park, some in the bush and some out on the plains."

Amongst many striking images Michelle captured this year is this 1938 Ford, standard coupe ute, photographed after a mid-winter snow storm and which thankfully hasn't been filched (yet). Great shot!

Several readers answered my request for photos of the Batemans Bay punt which operated across the Clyde River until the Batemans Bay Bridge opened in 1956 (Where on the South Coast, December 19, 2020).

I especially like this photo taken in 1954 by Bill Tomsett and sent in by his daughter Janette Asche, now of Brisbane, where if you look closely you can even make out the pylons under construction on the narrow steel 1956 bridge we've since come to love.

Just when this column thought it had nailed the location of the fabled cave on the eastern slopes of Black Mountain supposedly used early last century as a hideout for hermits and robbers ('The misty moment I'll never forget', October 17, 2020), came a missive from Dan Gordon of Lyneham.

"I heard the cave was at a dump site near the Botanic Gardens", reported Dan, who confesses to having "been intrigued by stories of bushrangers around Canberra since a kid".

Although he expected that any historic cave at the old tip would probably be "buried under the landfill," Dan went investigate. And bingo! Our intrepid urban explorer found a couple of fanglomerate caves "big enough to crawl into".

Keen to get to the bottom of this case, your akubra-clad columnist recently met Dan at the site just to the southwest of the junction of the Black Mountain Drive with Clunies Ross Street. And my verdict? While the two 'caves' are by no means as big as "an ordinary living room in a modern house" as author John Gale described them in 1927, they are certainly big enough to shelter in.

So where does this leave us? While Dan's 'discovery' demonstrates the extent of fanglomerate caves in the area, the most likely suspects remain the two bigger caves in the upper section of the Rainforest Gully at the Botanic Gardens.

Richard Twaites of Deakin agrees. When Richard first sighted the two caves several decades ago he was so taken by their perfectly arched entry that he thought "they might have been a man-made relic of some sort of mining or other construction".

"Though they may be less capacious than a century ago, the bigger of the two is about the size described by Gale," asserts Richard.

Clue: Now without pink bikinis (or prawns)

Degree of difficulty: Medium

Last week: It took almost the entire year but finally I managed to stump you all with last week's photo of a water tank sitting in a paddock on the eastern side of the Princes Highway near Mumbulla Mountain, between Bega and Cobargo. C'mon, you can do better this week, I know you can.

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and suburb to tym@iinet.net.au The first email sent after 10am, Saturday 26 December 2020, wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.

Unicycle on Thredbo Track

It's hard enough for most of us to ride on two wheels, but during the week Greg Terrill completed the 22km stretch of the Thredbo Valley Track from Thredbo to Lake Crackenback on his unicycle.

Greg reports "the hardest parts on the 'uni' are the big downhills and gravely switchbacks". I bet. Apparently he didn't fall off once.

And Greg's secret to success? Well, apparently it's not balance, rather it's the "special unicyclist vanilla milkshake with extra protein from the pizza man" he skolls before riding at the Alpine Larder (at Lake Crackenback). Mmm, think I'll pass on that one.

Creepy Crawly

Martin Kenseley of Rivett thinks the gnarly roots of this gum tree growing in a roadside embankment near Bermagui "look a bit like an octopus". It's even anatomically correct. Well sort of, with some creative counting you can just make-out the required 6 'arms' and 2 'legs' of an octopus.