Breakfast with a Three-Striped Stranger

I almost walked past him.

The light was doing that soft golden thing it only does for about twenty minutes after sunrise. Then I saw the seed scattered across an old garden wall, and crouched down to wait.

What followed was the most serious meal I have ever witnessed. He sat back on his haunches and ate like it owed him money, those enormous black eyes flicking up to check on me between bites.

For a creature that weighs less than a coffee cup, he carried himself with the dignity of something far larger.

The best wildlife photography isn't about exotic places. Sometimes it's just being still enough, long enough, for a small grey stranger to forget you're there.