The Christmas tingle...

I woke this morning, and went to my kitchen to make my ritual morning cup of tea. The weather was misty and warm, which, oddly enough, I absolutely love!
My rather large back yard (such luxury in Wellington) had overnight transformed into a galaxy of dandelions... my whole yard was studded in perfectly formed, gently waving star bursts of yellow.
I am of course, a total sucker for wildflowers, and I really hope I get to keep them for a few days before the lawn mower man comes to tame my tiny wilderness.

Speaking of wilderness, there's been a lovely sequence of events lately....
three weeks ago my rascally young cat Captain Jack brought in a shrieking baby bird, very late one evening.
I was lucky  and was able to get the bird off him within a matter of seconds, quickly popped it in a box, and stuck it in my large canary cage in the sun-room.
In the morning, I found a just fledging baby blackbird who was very keen for breakfast!
Since then I have been feeding Chopchop (for so he named himself with insistent repetition of the sound) cat-food - somewhat ironic that may be, but also a good substitute for worms!
He has turned from a grumpy looking ball of fluff, to a sleek and beautiful young bird, who is used to speeding about the floor of my work on quiet weekend days, and loves sitting on the computer keyboard.

 He has been very patient with me, sitting next to my bench for hours, being fed catfood every half an hour... and growing up faster that I realised!

Thankfully my studio mats have been very understanding... as where there goes Chopchop, there also goes bird droppings!

He has been super cute, and when he was quite little, really liked to get very close to me... which was a wee bit alarming at times, considering the dropping issue!





It has been an amazing opportunity to observe a wild bird at close quarters, and I shall miss him when he flies off to the wild blue yonder! these are all images of him when he was little, I will try to upload some of him as a teenager soon!