For about a month now, Arddun’s been an avid bird watcher. Credit goes partly to the owl decal behind the feeding chair in the corner of her bedroom because she’d been staring at their beady eyes about 4 times a day since we brought her home. But I think the greater influence has been this gorgeous handmade bird mobile that’s been hanging over her cot.

Handmade bird mobile over cot

It was fascinating to watch her make the connection in her little mighty brain that the abstract (owl, stuffed-with-cotton-wool birds) are also the same as those magnificent animals that swoop across the skies, twitter like mad in the evenings, and try to eat your chips when you’re dining al fresco. She points at trees and fully expects or hopes to see birds now. Maybe baby ears can pick out higher frequencies quicker, because she is on full alert as soon as one so much as chirps in passing.

She’s clear, too. She’s gone from saying, “Bur!” to “Bur-d!” to “Birdie!” to “A birdie!” Although there was a week when she called anything that moved a bird. The cat was a bird. The 4 o’clock train was a bird. We were birds.

But none of us is perfect, eh?

When we were in Brisbane, I’m sure she thought she stepped into bird paradise.

Here’s a short of her checking out the birds on Nanna and Grandpoppy’s neighbour’s TV aerial.