The Clancy Koala Foundation, was holding a Clancy Mini Tour to celebrate Clancy’s birthday.

Clancy is a koala at the You Yangs Regional Park, and he was born and raised there, now in his seventh year he has also now a father to a young son.

Details of the Clancy story are here. https://koalaclancyfoundation.org.au/who-is/who-koala-clancy

Always good for a party we went down to the You Yangs for the Clancy Mini Walkabout.  A chance to learn a bit about the work of those attending to the welfare of the Koalas in the park, (there are as many 100 or more so we were told), and to help by pulling up a bit of boneseed, the invasive plant that has endangered the habitat of the koalas.    Not only do they need the right trees to munch on, but space on the ground to move about, and the tall, thick, dense boneseed destroys that space.

What a good idea saith I, we could go to the party, and before hand we could take a wander about a couple of areas and look for some Robins.  Donchathink?   And EE and Mr Anonymous agreed.

Lunch at QB Cafe on the way out, book for a new semester of Tai Chi at the QB Centre, (I’m confident you’ll hear more about that), and we were on our way.

We have of late been trying to work with a most interesting Red-capped Robin in the area near a roadway.  He has a song that is very much non-Red-capped, and very much Scarlet. He is also an interestingly marked bird with a white patch, (think Scarlet), over his beak, and jet black wings.

And so the conjecture begins.  Is he a Red-capped, or a Scarlet? Is he the product of a Red-capped/Scarlet union? or has he been living with Scarlets for so long that he has picked up their habits.

EE and Mr A began at one end of the road, and I drove down to the other end. We’d work back and see if we could locate him. However I’d only gone 100m or so, when the distinctive call came from a nearby roadside tree.  I had to ease the Sir Perceval into a offside clear area and then walk back a bit.  To my surprise I also found the ‘good lady’, A true Red-capped Female, complete with “Deritt, derritt”, and ‘tick, tick,’ calls.

So it would seem our boy has female Red-capped Companion.    Now the conjecture can take an even wider turn.

EE and Mr A joined me, and we managed a few shots before they both took off uphill and over some large rocks (think petroica).

And we had a party to go to.

After a little boneseed ‘environmental enhancement’, which is, you’ll have to agree, a funny way to say, ‘pulling weeds’, we were taken on a stroll to see “Anzac”, the father of Clancy.  Clancy himself, is much further around the park, and was apparently not in a party mood.

And as a bonus, on the way back, our guide took us past a pair of Tawny Frogmouth, as an added party favour.

My kind of party.

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