Birds are important to me, in a way I have trouble articulating. I don't have a life list, nor do I wish to put a bird on everything (people keep giving me generic gifts with sparrows and such on them, which I do not care for).

I was born in Aotearoa, which is extraordinary in its birdlife. We have native insects, fish, frogs, and birds - but no native mammals other than dolphins and bats. Without mammalian predators, birds were free to evolve in fantastic ways - giant penguins, eagles large enough to carry a person away, alpine parrots, flightless parrots, all kinds of nocturnal birds, birds that lay the biggest egg in proportion to body size of any bird, birds that were thought to be extinct and were rediscovered again. There are birds everywhere! As children of the forest god Tane, birds feature heavily in our mythology, and can foreshadow events.

I like birds. When we were last in Aotearoa together, Spuuky & I went on a trip to see toroa (albatrosses!) and kea. If I go to a zoo, I usually bypass the majority of the mammals and go straight to the bird enclosures. At the moment, there are a lot of swallows and crows that hang out outside my kitchen window, it's nice to listen to them.

I find birds interesting and calming, although as Spuuky said, I don't care much for dullards like pigeons or budgies. I like intelligent birds most, so corvids and parrots. As you know, I also volunteered for years at a raptor rescue centre, so got used to literally chasing down eagles, vultures, hawks and owls - those were fun times