Concealed with Art Simone · iHeart Podcasts Australia

Squarking and Screeching 📣

July 7, 2025·26 min

Art Simone interviews Dr. Gráinne Clary on 'Concealed,' where hidden talents are revealed. Gráinne has a PhD from Trinity College Dublin, teaches at Australian universities, writes books—and is 'Australia's most passionate bird lady.' At 40, she discovered pole dancing despite zero coordination and spent years learning to invert. She's dyslexic with dyspraxia; academia bullied her for speaking plainly instead of using academic jargon. She left academia post-PhD, submitting Friday and flying one-way to Australia that same week with her husband and a cat. The cat disappeared a year later. She initially studied koalas via citizen science, then pivoted to birds when community passion became obvious. She's written 'Your Backyard Birds,' 'Why Do Birds Do That?,' and upcoming 'Why Do Birds Sing?'—exploring bird cognition, memory, executive function, and dreaming. She ran citizen science projects mapping human-bird interactions in backyards.

As heard by us

A playful bird chat that turns into a genuinely informative conversation.

The episode starts as a playful guessing game, but Dr. Grainne Clary is the real draw: a Dublin-born academic with a PhD, a book writer, and a pole dancer who found that practice after leaving academia.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want camp banter that turns into real bird science.

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