Hello.

That's his name. He's  not a tamed bird; I didn't train him to hop
up on my finger or anything, but he's grown to trust me enough
to let me come close. He, in fact, has me quite well trained, to come
running whenever he makes a certain mournful drawn-out peep.
It's really quite emotive. I have learned that this sound means
Hello is hungry/sleepy/bored.

He flies around on my relatively-safe balcony and occasionally
scares the daylights out of me by trying to land on the bridge
of my glasses. He enjoys a nice leaf of mint every now and then,
and is developing a taste for apple, but turns his beak up
at everything else I offer him, including Alphonso mangoes.
He does have good taste in literature, though, and listens
intently when I read to him. We are on Chapter Two of
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. He likes me
to read aloud to him, and twitters softly at all the best parts.
I think he fancies himself a Ravenclaw, but I'm pretty sure
he's a Slytherin. By sunset he heads back to his cage and makes
his mournful little peeps (they start out soft and get louder
until I remember to say good night and fuss over him a bit
before I cover him up for the night).

I mentioned him in my last post, so thought I should do
a proper introduction. Here he is. Hello.

Hello.

Don't get excited. Those are just empty chicken eggshells from the kitchen.

Amazing moths.

Not the most creative headline, I realise. And, as you scroll down
to see, not the greatest photography, either. But what IS amazing
is the Creator of these little wonders.

These are all moths that I've found just lying around my
building - most were alive, but even the dead one was so
beautiful I had to take pictures. Sorry for the sad quality of
my photos, I shot them with the camera on my phone. Perhaps
later I will try sketching/painting these, and share that with you.

Why was this Sphinx Moth waiting for me at the top of the stairs? It's a mystery.

Beautiful and pure ..

.. but, alas, dead, which is why I could turn her over for this shot.

She was on the landing when I came in from drying laundry on the terrace.

I nudged her off the stair so she wouldn't get stepped on by a less observant neighbour, and she flew off to a safer spot, displaying her pretty petticoats

A Fruit-Piercing Moth at my front door. Literally. No doubt trying to get at my strawberries.

P.S. Can anyone identify these moths for me?

Moth #1 might be an Oleander Hawk Moth (Daphnis nerii) or Sphinx Moth.
Moth #2 Asota egens? Or asota caricae, a type of Tiger Moth. Likes papaya.
Moth #3 no idea
Moth #4 Fruit Piercing Moth

An apology to the dogs.

Dogs and I have not had a happy history. Years ago (okay,
decades) I developed a phobia of them. I've tried for years
to overcome it. I've even figured out that the phobia itself was
most likely created as the only way I could express my terror
at something else entirely:  the Child Sexual Abuse of which
I was a victim at the time.

Knowing this is only on an intellectual level, though, and does
nothing to stop the primal terror that surges up within me when
I have to face a dog, even a puppy. I manage to overcome it only
under certain circumstances. Stray dogs are less scary, especially
if I pass by them every day. And for some mysterious reason, 
golden retrievers don't scare me at all.

All other dogs:  scared. Top of the list are black dogs, and
pet dogs. (So to all you friends who live in doggie houses -
I'm telling you this just once:  no matter how nicely (or 
how often) I assure you that I'll visit, I never will.
And tying/locking up your dog won't help, because that just
makes the dog miserable, which makes me feel miserably
guilty - and no less afraid.)

What we fear, we tend to hate, don't we? I've never really
"hated" dogs - in fact, there are a few I've been very fond of
 in the past (none at the time of writing). But I also love cats,
and so I suppose I picked sides.

I saw cats as clean, regal, independent creatures, with high
self-esteem. So naturally I saw dogs as dirty, dumb, slavish 
and menial. And then I came across something about dogs
in a book on Native American spirituality, on the symbolism
behind various animals. Dogs, the book said, were symbols
of compassion.

I've mulled that over in my head a couple of times, and  
sort of got the gist of it. Then this morning, I drove past
a mangy white stray dog, sitting on the pavement sniffing
at a bit of bread someone had dropped. It turned its head
to glance at me with its lovely eyes (all dogs have lovely
eyes, even Cujo did) and then turned back, but didn't eat
the bread, just looked ahead serenely.

I don't really know what about this struck me, but in that moment
I thought of Buddha, and suddenly I knew what doggy compassion
meant. It's not about putting up with human cruelty or ill-treatment
because they are the slaves and we are the masters, it's not that
at all. These are creatures descended from wolves. If cats are royalty,
dogs are soldiers, warriors. With their heightened senses they can
smell fear, they can hunt down another animal, they can do this
alone or in packs.

They can rip out our throats if they want to. But they don't. 

By that last sentence, I don't mean, "they don't rip out our throats".
I mean, "they don't want to." They can, but they don't want to.
And considering how very stupidly and/or cruelly we humans
treat each other, let alone other species, this is no small thing.

So now I understand what the Native Americans meant. I have
seen the light in those doggy eyes and shall henceforth look
into them with a new respect*, and a new understanding of
what it is that we have to learn from them.

I, cat-loving, dog-fearing human, hereby apologise to the dogs.

*From a respectable distance, of course - and no, this doesn't 
mean I'll be visiting the doggie houses any time soon.