Today Is Also..

...fluffy post day.

I have decreed it so.

For the purposes of this particular Fluffy Post, let me set the scene:

The smokers' balcony at work is three stories above ground level. There is nary a tree in sight. Well - one potted fica over there in the corner, but no, like, actual trees.

The balcony is tiled,runs around the inside of a courtyard, and open mostly to the air - which means that we get wet when it rains and bake in summer, but we don't get to see much of anything natural, unless you count the birds.

Most mornings, I set aside the last of my breakfast, usually rooibos-and-rye sandwiches with cheese and tomato (and please, don't upbraid me on such a voluminous breakfast. My body knows what it needs, which is a huge breakfast, a lighter lunch and no supper at all) to crumble and scatter on the balcony, always in a set place, for the littler birds to come share.

So, this usually means Sparrows - sometimes Minahs - have come to recognise me and will stop what they're doing at about 7 o'clock to feast on bread and cheese together.

I've been doing this for a couple of years, and what is absolutely delightful is that the Sparrows -actually, one Sparrow in particular - will, maybe 3 or four times a year, leave something behind in the place where I shared my food with them. Quite often, it's a feather. This morning, as has happened only twice before, it was a leaf.

A dried, brown, Pin Oak leaf which comes from 3 floors down  and right around the other side of the building, for the closest specimen.

My little, fluffy, brown-and-grey friend was perched, at 8 in the morning, on the railing above my head, yelling at me as only a Sparrow can, until I walked over and picked up the anomalously-positioned leaf.
And thanked him. Whereupon he shut up and flew away again.