Juno & Tweety

Juno turned 9 months old today and what a start to 2006 we have all had. First up, Juno's first tooth burst through last week. Now she is even more efficient in her demolition of peaches, nectarines and other stonefruit. And, she is not the only one in the house chomping her way through the pantry.

A couple of days after New Year's, Wellington was buffeted by some reasonable gales -well, for Wellington they were probably quite run-of-the-mill. As usual, there were quite a few trees blown over and the odd roof lifted: what Wellingtonians pretty much regard as business as usual here in the roaring forties. Anyway, Jess and Heather had taken Juno down to the Hutt river for a walk and when they alighted from the car they were set upon by a song thrush fledgeling: it literally ran up to them cheeping, demanding to be fed.

Jess bought it home and, after talking to the SPCA who had their hands full with birds blown out of nests all over the region, we were told how to feed and care for it until it was able to fly. So, over the next week we fed it (organic puppy biscuits soaked in water) and let it out in the living room to practice flying. A couple of days ago, seeing it was now feeding itself, Jess let it out on the back deck and watched it fly off into the bush behind the house.

Later that afternoon there were suspicious cheeping sounds emanating from the back deck and, sure enough the thrush was back. Now it happily wanders into the kitchen, quietly going about its business as part of the menagerie up here in the Hutt hills.