We have no such problem with the names of the three camels that at noon on Friday began giving free rides in Civic. Their names were Sarah (I interviewed her at considerable depth, marvelling at her fabulous eyelashes), Cappuccino and 'Tasha. They belong to Peter Hodge Camels and so, too, does Topsy, an endearingly scruffy little dog who goes everywhere the camels go.

"Aren't they big!" one little girl, queueing for a ride, marvelled.

"They are hooooge!" her grown-up female companion gasped.

As the hoogely popular camels came and went from Ainslie Place near the musically splishy-splashy Canberra Times Fountain a brisk breeze picked up the fountain's waters and threw a refreshing spray at man and camel.

"It's just like being at an oasis," Sarah confided to me.

One young woman, chortling, engaged in that new art form the camelback selfie.

Camels are always objects of wonder. Their shapes are so improbable and yet they are strangely graceful. On Friday as the humped triumvirate swayed to Akuna Street and back they lent the neighbourhood a kind of dignity. And a biblical, Christmassy dignity at that, because of their species' vital contribution to the saga of the Nativity. Had the Three Wise Men journeyed to Bethlehem on bicycles or Segway scooters the occasion would have lacked poetry.*

And they, the camels, are the second seldom-seen-in-Canberra creatures being marvelled at at the moment. Loyal readers will know we have been reporting readers' recent sightings here of rainbow lorikeets. These are dazzlinglycoloured birds (far too vulgar in my opinion, like the worst of Hawaiian shirts) birds we expect to see at the coast but don't expect to see here. Sightings in recent days, especially in a Narrabundah garden blessed with a heavilyladen loquat tree, have rekindled debate about where the rainbow lorikeets seen in Canberra come from. Are they escapees and rellos of escapees from aviaries, or are they here because of natural expansions and drifts of their populations?

Canberra's Dr Joseph Forshaw is a world-renowned authority on parrots. In response to the sightings of recent days he ventures that "rainbow lorikeets have been in Canberra since at least the 1980s, when I observed nesting at the Macquarie Oval."

"At that time numbers were very low, and the birds were quite locally dispersed, occurring mainly at Macquarie and Hawker. It was tempting to suspect that these very local, small populations originated from escaped cagebirds, and that may well have been so.

"Numbers increased quite significantly during the period that I was away from Canberra, between 1990 and 2002, so raising the possibility that they had come from the south coast, where populations increased significantly during this same period. "However, I am not aware of any build-up in numbers in the intervening areas, and indeed I know of no records from the Braidwood-Bungendore region.

"There is good evidence that the now abundant population in southwestern Australia probably originated from a small number of birds that escaped or were released from captivity at the University of Western Australia in the 1960s, and the population in the vicinity of Auckland, New Zealand, similarly originated from a small number of escaped cagebirds, so we know that a strong population can build up quickly from a small number of birds. That may well have occurred in Canberra, but the evidence is merely anecdotal.

"Musk lorikeets and little lorikeets always have appeared in Canberra at irregular intervals, but both naturally occur at more inland localities, and I suspect that warming climate has enabled both to ascend to higher elevations in the Southern Highlands, so they are being seen more regularly in Canberra and district. Possibly the same circumstances have aided range expansion by the purple-crowned lorikeet, and also may be assisting in establishment of rainbow lorikeet populations.

"These comments are offered merely for what they are – speculative theories without solid supporting evidence!"

Of course a more fanciful, more New Ageist columnist would point to the eerie coincidence of these new ACT rainbow lorikeet sightings with the elevation of the "openly gay" Andrew Barr to the chief ministership. He or she, that kind of columnist, might say the rainbow lorikeets' showings are A Sign because of course the rainbow flag is the gay pride flag.

The media's constant references to Andrew Barr being "the first openly gay state or territory leader" has me wondering why this kind of reference to public figures' sexuality is not more common.

For example I may be the first openly heterosexual Gang-gang columnist, although if so this will be because no previous Gang-gang columnist's sexuality has ever arisen as a matter of newsworthiness. Perhaps, coming out of the closet here and now to admit to my November 23 birthday I am this column's first openly Sagittarian writer.

*The camels will be swaying to Akuna Street and back, from 1pm to 7pm until December 21.