A little bird told me a lot about my father. Let’s hope Mum never knows

April 9, 2026 — 12:57pm

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On Sunday, I found a dead pardalote lying out on the deck beneath the sliding door. He must’ve flown into the glass and broken his neck or mashed his skull. I guess the last thing he saw was a crazy pardalote heading straight for him promising a collision at twice the speed of pardalote, so he veered, but the other pardalote, confoundingly, veered the same way and he crashed head-on into this unrepentant kamikaze, never realising it was himself.

His little body was stiff, but the jewellery of his plumage was unruffled. His yellow throat, the white spangling on his black cap, the rows of polka dots on his dark wings, his caramel belly and his tangerine tail, all these made a display Gustav Fabergé might have envied and emulated. A pardalote’s beauty is so arresting when you see one up close that it briefly annuls all else and makes itself the universe entire. If you’re freshly in love you’ll know this........

© The Sydney Morning Herald