A tradition has officially started now that I’ve done it twice. Each year, in honour of Joel’s birth, I shall embroider a different bird species found on our property to add to a home wall gallery. Joel asked what the criteria is for birds to be selected: they have to be interesting, native, and not commonly found in the city (even though they can be common on the Fleurieu). I can’t bring myself to embroider pigeons or magpies, though we have plenty of both. The idea is that I shall never run out of birds to embroider, as more and more birds will flock to our property as it becomes ever more diverse and abundant! The key bird species we are hoping to attract at the moment are yellow-tailed black cockatoos (which currently fly straight over and go and eat pine nuts in the pine trees in the Second Valley beach carpark) and the little finches we see hanging out in the Wirrina reveg area just across our back fence line. So stay tuned for next year’s installation!