Archie came home with me from Tasmania, in a way.

Superb fairy-wrens seemed to be everywhere we went, these tiny flashes of brilliant blue darting through the landscape, and I completely fell in love with them. Then, once we were home, I started noticing them around the beach near us. They'd probably been there all along. I just hadn't been looking for them.

I ask for signs sometimes. From the universe, from the people I've loved and lost. And I've come to think of birds as one of the ways those signs arrive. So when the wrens kept appearing, I paid attention.

That's one of the things I love about Archie. He's a reminder of what happens when something captures your attention. Suddenly you see it everywhere. And sometimes what you're seeing is more than a bird.

He's hard not to notice. That extraordinary blue against the warm background, those tiny legs carrying far more personality than seems possible.

Sometimes the wild doesn't suddenly appear. Sometimes we simply learn to see it.

Acrylic and oil on canvas · 20 × 20 cm (8 × 8") · Original

Painted from a reference photograph by Shutterstock.