Mr B had always lived there. Long before we arrived to make a home on the Bega River, he had built his own. His was a simple affair; a busy temple to blue that drew an annual parade of female admirers. You see, Mr B is a satin bower bird, that most industrious and enterprising of creatures.

A year ago, a firestorm devastated Tathra, a small town on the south coast of New South Wales. Our house survived, but the forest understory on our block did not. We wandered over our blackened land in a daze, and wondered what happened to Mr B. Save for a few blistered blue pegs, his bower had been incinerated.