The intrusive paparazzi captured this intimate moment and sold the picture to big-spending Chinwag, the online magazine of Canberra and region ARF (Animal Rescue and Foster). The picture graces the new, heartwarming, summer edition of Chinwag, waiting for you at fosterdogs.org.

Sir Robert is in town, but generally Canberra's humans have almost all either fled from the city or are in holiday hibernation, making this a trying time for journalists.

Thank goodness, then, that the city's wildlife is especially busy and newsworthy at this season. We continue to receive a welcome blizzard of readers' observations and pictures, especially of birds. Our occasional series of readers' pictures of birds (especially birds of prey) engaged in acts of sex and violence has been very controversial. There have (rapture!) been angry phone calls and (joy!) letters of outrage to the editor. But then this R-rated series has the active support of those who are sending us the pictures and we warn the squeamish we have some absolute rippers (in every sense of the word) coming up.

Meanwhile, on the subject of newsworthy wildlife, John Bundock says "You seem to be encouraging readers to send in pics of avian fauna. Here are some photos I took this week of other flying fauna."

His suite of pictures sent to us includes this spectacularly red-eyed monster (hanging upside-down), responsible for some of the anonymous treetop shrilling going on at the moment.

He reports that "The hot weather and recent rains have provided ideal conditions for Red Eye cicadas to emerge from their years underground for their brief lives in the sunshine. The absence of stock being walked along the Barton Highway has resulted in the Hall Travelling Stock Reserve becoming a wildlife refuge. In one part of the Reserve on Wednesday the 'song' of the cicadas drowned out the traffic noise and their droppings descended like fine misty rain."

Meanwhile, following sightings of some of those flying Hawaiian shirts the rainbow lorikeets (not normally thought of as Canberra birds) in Narrabundah, we have been running here an occasional series of experts' and enthusiasts' feelings about this phenomenon.

But now the suspicion that rainbow lorikeets really have moved to Canberra (as part of a natural drift) and are not just aviary escapees, begins to deepen. Several readers have reported rainbow lorikeets always in their bailiwick.

David Rowlands testifies, with photographic proof, "Here's evidence we see them in Calwell. We have seen a pair here on the slopes of Tuggeranong Hill in Calwell several times in the last few years."

And

Yes, let's hope that none of the city's owls are alarmed when the real Santa Claus (rumoured to be bringing this columnist a new pair of birdwatching binoculars) and his sleigh come rushing through Canberra's night skies tomorrow night.

Pedants' Corner: Clarification

Because it is such a hot spot for birdlife Narrabundah's Rocky Knoll has had several recent mentions in this column. Several readers have contacted us to insist that the true name of this spot is Rocky Kn*b. (We have amended the blush-making word thus, throughout this item.)

One discerning reader writes "Thank you for your wonderful articles in The Canberra Times over the years. However, can I correct [your references] to 'Rocky Knoll'?

"My partner grew up in nearby Scott Street in the 1960s and her mother still lived there in the same house until she died a few months ago. My partner is adamant that 'Rocky Knoll' is a more recent affectation arising from the gentrification of the suburb, and that its proper name is 'Rocky Kn*b."

Even if this is true I have erred on the side of calling it a knoll because ours is a gentrified, family column, with standards. It never uses snigger-triggering words like kn*b.