"I've been a teacher of Kung Fu for over 30 years, and in my Art, refer to many animals to help students understand how to move with fluidity, strength and power. We use animals including (perhaps mythical) dragons, together with tigers, cranes, monkeys, and even the praying mantis.

"However, I may need to reconsider the breadth of animals I use to include the Aussie magpie.

"I have taught many students how to break a fall, sometimes with some difficulty - but a young magpie in my suburb of Downer could prove an unparalleled natural role model! These pictures [follow them counter-clockwise] show a perfect tucking of the head, excellent roll over the left shoulder [wing], and a perfect soft landing.

"And how appropriate that the youngster [at play] was using our local playground. She or he was practicing for a good 15 minutes as I started my own practice. I just had to come inside and get my camera!"

And while with the fowls of the air - the Canberra Ornithologists Group's citizen-science, year-long survey of the city's beloved but poorly understood Gang-gang cockatoos has one last data-gathering flurry left. It is everyone's last chance (for the purposes of the Survey) to count Gang-gangs. It's a process not helped by the species' fondness (see our picture) for playing hide and seek.

COG, thanking this column and its cockatoo-attentive readers for a year of assistance, alerts us to the week-long "Muster" survey from February 19 to 25.

Chris Davey, project manager of the survey, says the late summer count is important to help us map whether the birds have returned to suburbs.

"We saw a reduction in the number of Gang-gangs recorded in the November muster, suggesting some birds may have returned to the cooler mountain habitats over spring and summer."

As usual, mystery surrounds whether or not any Gang-gangs do any nesting down here in the city where we all doteon them, our faunal emblem.

Davey says that despite some promising observations about hollow preparations and nesting behaviour over spring, there were no positive breeding events recorded in Canberra's urban nature reserves.

"Nesting hollow competition [from other species] appears to be a factor and where birds had taken up residence, a heavy rainfall event in early December led to nests being abandoned in Mt Majura and Mt Mugga Mugga Nature Reserves."

The results of the November count shows both a drop in the overall numbers of birds from the May and August musters, suggesting many had zoomed away to the mountains.

"The February muster count will give us a better idea about the seasonal distribution of the birds and we may see an increase in group sizes with a new crop of juvenile birds."

Davey reminds us that the Gang-gang muster is a simple bird-watching activity that anyone can take part in.

"Just choose somewhere you spend a little time most days of the week, like your home garden or the local park, and record whether you see or hear any Gang-gangs, or not. Even if you don't see any birds, these reports [because we're trying to find out how the species is distributed across the city we need to know what unhappy places are Gang-gang bereft] are really important for the survey."

line electronic form that can be used to enter records at the end of the muster week or you can download a paper form. All is revealed via the COG website at canberrabirds.org.au.

Results of the Gang-gang survey will be available later in the year when all of the data has been cerebrally crunched. If, then, I am still the curator of this column, this little shop of nebulosities,* of course this column will leap to report what has been found.

*Yes, until we learn more about them there is always going to be a certain nebulosity about Gang-gang cockatoos. Forgive word-collecting old columnists' occasional obsession with long-lost words but we've just - in an 1874 edition of the Queanbeyan Age -come across this report from the paper's Tuggranongcorrespondent.

"On last Sunday evening, a really splendid phenomenon made its appearance in the heavens. When first seen, it appeared like a star falling downwards, leaving a serpentine line of luminous matter clearly discernible for about half an hour. It occurred a few minutes after sunset, and lasted till dark. It did not appear to travel but rather to fade away. Here is food for those versed in astronomy, but I would venture that it was one of those winding nebulosities of which the most eminent astronomers have but a very vague knowledge."

How cute the parochialism of the Tuggranong correspondent that he imagined Tuggranong had its own piece of the heavens where uniquely Tuggranongish things happened! And how lovely the word "nebulosities" to refer to whatever (in astronomy, in Bill Shorten's statements of what he says he stands for, in the ACT government's case for light rail, in anything and everything) is imprecise, ephemeral, elusive.