Our lovely neighbour has a rather shouty type of dog. He’s adorable but highly excitable.

So when we heard Charlie barking barking barking, we thought that he’d probably seen a wallaby. Or an ant.

There was a knock on the front door soon after that. It was our lovely neighbour and she’d come to report that Charlie had been barking at a couple of koalas in trees on our block. I grabbed my camera, and my partner and I met our neighbour and Charlie in the clearing.

It took me a while to spot the koalas. From a distance they looked as if they were part of the tree. Closer, though, their rounded heads and ears gave them away.

It seems that koalas like the thin, straggly trees on our block for perching in. You wouldn’t think they’d support a koala – weighing, on average, 9 kilos – but they do.

The koalas looked as if they enjoyed swaying around in the breeze on their perches and they reminded me of a performance group I once saw called ‘Strange Fruit’. They seemed only mildly curious about Charlie’s presence.

Because koalas live in social groups with other koalas, they need eucalypt forests that supply them, their offspring and their community with food, shelter and places for social interaction.

A koala will stay within the boundaries of its habitat range for life and any socialising tends to take place whenever koala habitats overlap.

Out of 600 different types of eucalypt tree, koalas will eat the leaves of only 40 to 50 varieties of them, with one to three trees used as a food source in any given area. Other trees will be used to sleep or sit in.

And because they obtain so little energy from eucalypt leaves, koalas are only capable of sleeping, sitting and generally looking cute.

Generating millions of dollars in tourist revenue each year, koalas must be our most laconic tourist attraction.