But, ye pedants, before you leap to criticise the erratic spelling in the feedback note in today's column's pictures we ask you to take into account the fact that this note has been written by a bird, a Latham's Snipe. So be charitable. Isn't it a remarkable thing that a snipe can spell at all?

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin to tell you the substantially true story behind this picture, as related to us by learned Canberra ornithologist Geoffrey Dabb, in this bird-blessed city an indispensable source of ornithological wisdom and wit.

As background we point out that Latham's Snipe (Gallinago hardwickii) is a fowl of enormous consequence for Canberra because it pauses here every year, usually sojourning at the Jerrabomberra Wetlands, after a long, long excursion from Japan and east Asia where it breeds. It arrives in south-eastern Australia in September and Canberra's share of them has recently arrived here. The species forsakes south-eastern Australia in about April, going Japanwards.

It flatters us that the species finds the ACT and especially the Wetlands green and pleasant enough (and wet enough, for snipes are waders) to be a prime destination. And of course the ACT recognises it has an international responsibility to play its part in doing the right things by and for these prodigious travellers.

This season, Dabb explains, a most fascinating thing has come to pass with the snipes' arrivals here.

He reminds us that, as almost all obsessive bird watchers will know, there are hides (for bird watchers to hide in) at the wetland's Kelly Swamp. Each hide has been given a name (appropriately a bird name).

"Names include 'Bittern' and 'Cygnus'. The current management has recently constructed a new rather open viewing screen on the western side. The opinions of Canberra Ornithologist Group members were sought on an appropriate name for this and 'Snipe' was decided on, and accepted ..."

"This snipe, strictly Latham's Snipe) is of some interest because it breeds in Japan and crosses the equator twice a year. They have arrived and are down there right now.

"When seen close-up snipe are surprisingly small, being about the size of a blackbird," Dabb testifies.

"They have a fast erratic flight and in rural England were regarded as gamebirds, the skill required to shoot them giving the word 'sniper' to the language."

"Now, amazingly, a snipe has come along and is using the ['Snipe' hide] for its own purposes."

Yes, it is, and in previous photographs Dabb has taken and sent us an actual Latham's Snipe is sitting inside 'Snipe' and is looking out, appreciatively, through the hide's window spaces, at the fine view of the swamp. It is surreal, but true, that the snipe seems to be using a bird-watching hide to do some bird-watching.

That was strange enough but now, as Dabb has seen and captured, that snipe has, as you can see from his picture, actually written a review of the hide.

One struggles to think of an analogy for this very strange phenomenon. Perhaps it is as if a sheep dog has written feedback about the property it works at. Perhaps it is as if a fine musical instrument, a Stradivarius violin perhaps, has spoken up about Canberra's Llewellyn Hall, giving an assessment of its acoustics, as a performance venue.

When, inevitably, these surreal things come to pass you will first read about them here as part of this column's commitment to telling the truth.

Latham's Snipes, criss-crossing the Equator every year, are remarkable travellers, and so as to give today's entire column a traveller theme we offer a picture of two of Bruno Catalano's sculpted travellers from his Les Voyageurs (The Voyagers) series.

We have a spontaneous "Gosh!" when we were alerted to them. Perhaps it is that all of his voyagers everywhere (these two are on the waterfront at Marseilles in France) pack a special poignancy at the moment with thousands of woebegone asylum-seeking voyagers on the run, often with their luggage, to Europe.

Catalano explains that "I have travelled a lot and I left Morocco when I was 12 years old. I felt that a part of me was gone and will never come back. From years of being a sailor, I was always leaving different countries and places each time, and it's a process that we all go through.

"I feel like this occurs several times during life and of course everyone has missing pieces in his or her life that he won't find again."

One critic divines that the missing parts of Catalano's voyagers "symbolise the vacuum created by being forced to leave your land, your life, your people... for any reason".

Another fancies that "They are skillful works of art even without the omissions, but the missing parts of the sculptures make them truly extraordinary and unique. They leave room for the imagination – are they missing something, or is it something that these voyagers have simply left behind?"

Some of Catalano's voyagers are ensconced in appreciative cities of the world (for example there are some in Singapore). But it is depressing to imagine what a knicker-knotted clamour our city's anti-public art philistines, some of them members of our ever-disappointing Legislative Assembly, would make over any suggestion that something so wonderful as some Catalano voyagers be bought for Canberra.