IN the week since Monday, November 16, there have been eight calls to the koala pager to report sightings. In itself, that number is not so unusual except that six of them were from one person, reporting five koalas.

The ace spotter is Julie Wasson, formerly a resident of Wedderburn, who over the past few years has reported dozens of koalas most of which were in trees beside the gorge on Wedderburn Road or on the road itself. This feat is astounding given that there are many people living in Wedderburn who have never spotted a koala.

Of Julie’s recent sightings, four were also from the gorge and included single koalas on either side of the causeway, and a mother and her almost independent cub, whom Julie and her family watched climbing a tree one after the other.

But the really amazing sightings were in the garden of her new property in St Helens Park, where a koala has been living for the past few days.

The koala was, until Saturday, always too high to see if it had ear-tags. Fortunately, the Wasson family eventually noticed it on the ground in the process of changing trees and was able to record the colour of each tag.

These colours identified the koala as ‘‘Curls’’, daughter of radio-collared Charlotte who lives beside Georges River Road and Darling Avenue, Kentlyn.

So Curls has now moved past Airds where she was spotted several times. If she continues in the same direction she will soon be in Wedderburn Gorge. It is unlikely that Curls will find an empty place to live there because we know that the area is well stocked with breeding females.

She may follow Wedderburn Road onto the plateau. Another young koala took this path recently and was spotted on Wedderburn Road and later on Minerva Road.

Alternatively, she may move through St Helens Park to Appin Road and points south. A young male recently took that dangerous route and its body was reported to us on Friday, November 13 after being hit by a car.

Whatever Curl’s fate, we hope her progress will continue to be reported to us.

This dispersal of a female cub a considerable distance from its mother is a valuable piece of information to fit into our picture of how koala colonies expand.

Please report koala sightings to the UWS pager: 9962 9996.