Green Green

I resisted the urge to have a touch of red somewhere. This one's for Orc2009.

We have had a warm nor'wester today. The temperature went up to 28C, which was a big contrast from the last two days. With gusts up to 130kph there are small branches, cabbage tree leaves and sparrow nests littering the front lawn. You can see the effect on the poplars.

Three sparrow nests came down. All appeared to be used and unoccupied. I marvelled at their construction. They were mostly made of cut hay (how far was it carried?), and lined with feathers and soft sheep's wool. One had a long ribbon of soft plastic film woven into it, and in one I found a coarse grey hair just like mine. The nests have two entrances- one of them resembles a muff.

A strange thing happened while I was photographing one nest at the foot of the tall cabbage tree. My little cat came along to investigate. She looked at the nest and sniffed in one of the openings. Then she stood back and looked up at the tree where it came from. The head of the tree is far too high for her to have been up there. How did she associate the fallen nest with the treetop?

Happy New Year to anyone who missed my earlier greeting.