The panorama from the Bunjil lookout at Maude north of Geelong takes in a valley in the Barabool Hills where the Moorabool river has cuts its path
Bunjil the Eagle is the dream time creator of the lands and the people that traditionally inhabited the land now known as Victoria Australia
Bunjil is depicted as a Wedge Tailed Eagle, Australia’s largest bird of prey
A majestic bird in flight
The lookout Bunjil Lookout is shaped like an eagle its powerful bill in front and the huge wingspan behind
Many decades ago the air over the Barabool hills would be full of soaring wedge tailed eagles but after years of European settlement the great bird is listed ad threatened in Australia
I parked my Moto Guzzi in front of the look out
The emblem of Moto Guzzi is the eagle, a mythical eagle inspired possibly by the Golden Eagles that live in the mountains that surround Lake Como, the home of Moto Guzzi.
And looking at the two emblems together I could not help but think of how eagles have inspired us through the ages from the Dreamtime of the oldest culture on earth to the modern machine age
And despite this inspiration, this fascination the awe which these mighty birds install in us
We don’t treasure them, but have hunted eagles over centuries, destroyed their habitat and threatened the beautiful birds that are so inspirational.
The old gold mining town of Steiglitz is an interesting stop to look at an old settlement village
And in contrast to the indigenous names of Barabool and Morrabool the is the sister villages of Maude, Meredith and Elaine the run from south to north through the hills.
A stop in Geelong for a coffee and the view over the bay that was created in the dreamtime by Bunjil the Eagle.
On the Umbrial Pass in the Stelvio Region of the Italian Alps
There is a memorial to the to the Italian Aviators of WW1
And at the crown of the monument is the Golden Eagle in flight
Carlo Guzzi and his co-founders of Moto Guzzi were veterans of the Italian WW1 airforce.
And maybe that is their affinity with the eagle and how it found its way to being the emblem of the Moto Guzzi motorcycle.
Nice pics! I think the Moto Guzzi Eagle comes from the third founding member of Moto Guzzi (I forget his name) who had been a pilot in the Italian air force in WWI. I believe he died quite young and they wanted to honor him.
Yes I think that is about right. All the founders were in the airforce in WW1. The eagle emblem was adopted in 1924. Glad you liked the pics. The mighty Breva got a rare polish so the event needed to be recorded
Only the Tasmanian subspecies is listed as endangered according to Wikipedia. I haven’t heard of anyone hunting them but certainly a lot have been poisoned, even as of few years ago in Gippsland. Plenty of them on the roads eating roadkill in the Pilbara and crossing the Nullabor.
My source is https://www.birdlife.org.au/bird-profile/wedge-tailed-eagle where you can look up conservation status, federally and by state. The point i was making thoughts that there has been a huge reduction of eagles since European occupation of Australia. All wildlife in fact. And all around the world we seek inspiration from eagles while destroying their habitat and killing them by poison as happened in East Gippsland not that long ago.