The Bird Tree

Day 67: I'm sure if you'd given it a moment's thought, you could have guessed that my Christmas tree would have a strong natural history theme, and you might also have assumed that the decorations would be mostly birds. There are a few cats, some sheep, a couple of frogs, a caterpillar, snowflakes and icicles, but other than a very small handful of the traditional balls which were gifts from friends, at least 90% of the total number of ornaments are avian. Cardinals dominate by virtue of being associated with Christmas already, but there are other recognizable species: Canada jays, nuthatches, chickadees, parrots and cockatoos. There are carved wooden birds from Bali, stylized birds which I harvested from cocktail stirrers, glass birds, resin birds, feather birds, little birds, big birds, birds in nests, birds in straw houses. I've never counted them, other than 38 similar wooden birds which get packed away together, but there must be something in the neighbourhood of 200, maybe even 250. And they take forever to hang, and almost as long to put away in January. Sure, I could simplify decorating by weeding some out...and I could lighten my grocery bill by not filling the feeders quite so often. Nope, not gonna happen, not in my world.