This jaunty chap was spotted on Wade Place, Surry Hills.

He looks like some kind of top heavy, new breed of future robot. Harvesting energy from his gait, solar panel for a hat, he’s all head and arms. And he’s not alone.

Two red robots and a black one. Some kind of metaphor?

It’s Valentine’s Day on the weekend, so it’s no surprise to see people breaking out their best romantic moves in the neighbourhood.

These two are walking home via a bollard on Macdonald Street, Paddington – just over the bridge from Darlinghurst, after it stops being Burton Street.

It’s a paste-up, with Mini Graff’s distinctively clean, pop style, though it’s the first of her cute characters I’ve seen about in a while.

The girl whistles a song to pass the time. The boy’s peaked hat gives him a bit of a Boys Own vibe as he teaches their pet to heel (is that a squirrel or a dog?).

You can find these inner city kids on Fitzroy Lane, Surry Hills.

Reminds me of this man, who appeared on Clarkson’s Mill Way, Darlinghurst, in March last year.

This farm yard animal appeared on Liverpool Street this week.

It’s just down from the crossing with Palmer Street, and diagonally across from East Village – but what it actually is, I’m far from certain. At the site, I had it picked for a cow. On photo, it seems obviously porcine.

This rabbit popped up down near the corner of Hardie and Burton Streets, Darlinghurst, this week.

It’s a cute bunny, but it’s a bit early for Easter decorations, right?

This little bit of alpine art is on the loading dock of a Surry Hills warehouse, just behind the Bourke Street Bakery and around the corner from the Brett Whiteley Studio.

It’s a series of craggy mountain tops, set in pink – each mountain seems to have a letter, but I can’t make sense of it – it’s out the back of Gineico Marine’s Devonshire Street warehouse, on Esther Street and Esther Lane.

There are quite a few other bits of street art on the block – see local blog Acid Midget for more. Little stencil galleries like this are tucked away across Darlinghurst and Surry Hills, I wonder whether the work tends to cluster because of a lack of monitoring, support from residents and local businesses, or just that once one person’s done a stencil at a spot, others want to join them.

There’s a person with a cute animal trio on the wall in Hanslow Street, Surry Hills.

It’s hard to tell exactly, but I think there’s a rhinoceros (could be a hippopotamus), one giraffe and one elephant, and a person.

UPDATE (26/9/09): The paint stuck to the wall a bit better when this stencil appeared on Williams Lane, Paddington.

It’s definitely a rhino, with a giraffe, an elephant and a fairly stocky person.

There’s a rooster and a fantastical island scene down at the corner of Foley and Langley Streets, Darlinghurst.

It’s just behind Oxford Street, near Taylor Square, and along with a Kill Pixie diss by some Slayer lover, there’s a fetching rooster stencilled on the wall.

There’s also this vaguely occult collection of symbols pasted up: an island palm, a pyramid, a skull, waves and sand.

Walking home last night, about 10.30pm, I caught ZAP in the act.

Nonchalantly, I walked through the car wash between Victoria Street and Darlinghurst Road, silently cursing myself that I’d left the camera at home. All the while, 2 capped men plastered a “J” on the wall of the stencil gallery, adjacent to the rapping dinosaurs.

This morning, their handywork was up for all to see.

Strange message, Zap.

UPDATE: 21/8/09

Mystery solved. But like most solutions to mysteries, it’s a bit disappointing.

Walking past the Green Park Hotel this morning, I caught sight of a familiar couple.

Keep your eyes peeled.

They get around those two.