This is a night out on the town like no other, where pretty much everyone except the birds in the trees are eating, drinking, making babies and often killing one another.
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Along the clay-hardened tracks of Mulligans Flat sanctuary near Forde on Friday nights you discover the unvarnished truth about the Australian bush's nightlife a century ago.
Odds are you will see bettongs – unseen on the Australian mainland for 100 years – in the enclosed sanctuary, and, in time, bush stone-curlews, which have not been seen in this neck of the woods for 40 years.
A few of the curlews introduced recently flew over the fence and fell victim to predators. Foxes were singled out as culprits after one of the curlews was found decapitated and buried in a hole covered with grass, a cache for the fox to return to another day.
Sanctuary ecologist Kate Grarock describes nature honestly at Mulligans.
She recalls, for example, researchers tracking a New Holland mouse to a tree, then suddenly losing it.
"There was a tawny frogmouth [owl] sitting up there looking pretty fat and happy," she says.
"The coolest thing we saw was the other night [when] we saw some bettongs. One was at the base of a wattle tree. I thought, 'what is it doing?' We stood around for a bit, we were quite close to the bettong, it was nibbling at the base of the tree.
"It was strange, we went up afterwards, because it had been feeding just like a sugar glider, eating the sap from the tree. It had this little groove from the base of the tree, out was flowing the sweet sap, it was feeding off that."
The information was passed on to ANU scientists, who, along with their CSIRO colleagues, have been studying Mulligans Flat since it was established in 2009.
Jason Cummins from the Capital Woodland and Wetlands Conservation Trust, which runs the tours for $49.50 per person, says the aim is to inspire people in the community about the woodlands, and hope this translates into better funding.
A peaceful blanket falls over the sanctuary at dusk. The last of the fading orange light seeps through trees as a pair of magpies land on a tall eucalypt to roost.
Insects become rowdier as a dozen or more people with little red penlights dangling from their necks follow Grarock through the bush. The ecologist's spotlight sweeps the long grass and trees as stars appear across the sky around a half moon. Branches and fallen timber look mysterious and promising habitat.
Friends of Mulligans Flat's Mark White spots a bettong and the tour group turns and pauses to see its eyes reflecting in the light, as it moves about in dead timber.
Later, another bettong puts on a show, darting about like a rat-kangaroo through the trees.
Although trying to be quiet, the walkers' crunching footsteps, and a breeze rustling through the trees still cause noise. Yet, with all this, Grarock manages to hear something, which brings her to a halt.
Her torchlight settles on a tree frog, about the size of a 50¢ piece, in the dry leaf litter, so dry it's given away the frog's location.
At least seven frog species have been identified in the sanctuary, which has several dams.
"The biggest threat to frogs is loss of habitat," Grarock says. "Say if you have stock coming down for water, they muddy the water, disturb the vegetation that the frogs call from or have their eggs."
A bat and orb weaver spider and its exquisite web are also picked up in the searching lights over the two hours of the tour; two hours which glide by all too quickly.
