This morning Barry remembered we had once made a very short video of Sweetpea, and he's arranged a link to it here. Be warned, the file is pretty big.

Early in his stay with us, several years ago now, I was playing with my new little camera and I managed to pick up this short video of our new roommate. I don't think I ever used its video function again, and as it turns out it's now one of the few images, and the only moving picture, we have of Sweet Pea.

I guess we thought we'd eventually be able to record him better outside the cage, but the little guy stubbornly resisted all of our efforts to introduce him to our fingers in order that he might share in the delights (and dangers) of life outside a cage. Maybe the big experience which preceded his arrival at our window had been enough to put him off open spaces forever. He certainly was never able to bring himself to trust a finger, and that was a very sad thing for the two of us.

Eventually we all must have grown so comfortable with the relationship defined by his own personal space that Barry and I never again thought of documenting the hops, the chirps and the peeps, the deep bows, the impromptu overtures of greeting which found him clinging to the bars on the side, the curiosity which kept him peering around his mirror at whatever I was up to in the kitchen, the happy dances, the huge delight in fresh fennel or frissee, the ecstatic play or the gurgling little songs which accompanied his sweet dreams.

He was always there, and he'd be there tomorrow.

I suppose he still is.