Peekaboo!

Sometimes I get the feeling they really don't want their picture taken.

And of course this relates to that whole question of whether it is ethical to invade their privacy. Is this not another form of exploitation? Is this another way to USE non-humans for our own ends? To consume them, grasp them, objectify them?

I do believe there is something in that. And it makes it no better that I feed them. This is not a transaction they have signed up for.

My reason is aesthetic not ethical. This is the beauty of the world and it is my current best way of appreciating it, attending to it, wondering at it - the world's grace made manifest in these thinking, feeling others.

The long-tailed tit was hanging upside down by one leg to eat a peanut clasped in the other foot!