Which was intended purely as a bit of silliness, but if you want to read Meaning into it, then treat it as Darwin "creating" Man as a thinking, evolving organism rather than a Mini-Me built from a kit.

Flint died earlier today, aged 6 years and a few odd months and the last of the pirate trio who'd been with me since December 2005. I think, in the end, age simply caught up with him. I didn't realise until I looked at the photo above how much ... not older he was looking, but certainly less young than he used to.

Flint was always the quietest and most inoffensive of the three budgies (although he was inclined to get a bit raucous when haranguing the lovebirds since Blackbeard died in 2010), and was also the one I expected to lose when he was much younger. He had to be treated twice for lipomas, even wearing the cone of shame to stop him biting at them, and always had a distinct preference for the budgie equivalent of fast food (millet spray & Trill seed) over anything that might actually be more balanced or nutritious ... although he did love to shred a piece of broccolini now and then, with enough enthusiasm to hurl bits of greenery three or four feet out of the cage. Sometimes he'd even deign to gnaw the end off a snow pea but, by and large, he was happiest with his carbs.

It wasn't a shock to find him on the floor of his cage when I came home tonight (I'd had an uneasy feeling for the last couple of days that it was coming), but it was still upsetting. I wrapped him carefully in a piece of the flannelette sheet I used for covering him at night, and buried him amongst the trees in the back garden as the sun went down, along with a piece of millet spray and his favourite mirror.