My Mum passed a love of gardening on to me and with it came a fascination with the small birds who love to hop about in the bottle brush hedges and sip at the emu bush blossoms.

My Little People meet a young honeyeater

This dear little New Holland Honeyeater was a casualty of our big spring cleaning effort this week, twice crashing into our sparkling windows. Lifted up ever so gently beyond Patch’s reach, the youngster recovered in a couple of minutes, only to fly along the verandah a few metres before crashing all over again! He or she took another breather under the watchful gaze of two Little People for a few moments before zipping off into the shrubs.

Whoever said housework never killed anybody clearly was misinformed. Next time the cleaning urge comes, I’ll try harder to resist.