Although it's a little alarming that we're down to only four tubs of tasty seeds, from the original 16 1/2, the really sad part about this picture is that Nutmeg's dead and frozen body is in the plastic bag on top of the seeds.

She died suddenly, without warning, while I was out of town. Which has left poor Bruce with a terrible amount of Finster Guilt. But it wasn't his fault, I'm sure. She was the nakedest bird of the bunch, clearly at the bottom of the pecking order among the Finsters, and still scared of me after living here for almost a year. Any illness she caught would have hit her pretty hard. Since I was away, Bruce put her in the freezer, to wait for the burial. I've put it off so far, it's so final. She was a sweet, shy bird. I hope she was happy here.

Being the apparently weird person that I am, I've taken a picture. Not the first time. Nothing too gruesome. Just a photo of her very long toenails (pops). Those Spice finches sure know how to grow nails!

R.I.P. Nutmeg, ? — August 16, 2005.