These little birds are quick and easy and quick to make, part of an egg box is cut out to make eyes and a short beak. A parcel of crumpled paper covered with glued tissue makes the body, and a paper plate makes the spreading wings. Legs can be either thinly rolled tubes of paper, or plaited lengths of string.

From this simple project it is possible to try other bird shapes, perhaps a colourful stately Peacock, a bright strutting Cockerel, or a plump little Puffin!

Although this project, called Humming bird, does not, in reality look like the real ones we saw swirling close to our seventh floor balcony. I have thought about some of the bird’s characteristics, the way the wings stretch out horizontally, whirling at supernatural speed, hovering almost motionlessly, as a bird pokes his beak exactly down the centre of a bright red flower to collect a breakfast of nectar.

Those small intense, bright eyes capable of judging precisely the distance from our seventh floor balcony to the first floor, before diving from an almost static, hovering position, then suddenly drop like a stone, and coolly perch in a little tree at ground floor level!

So I have thought only about the qualities of the Humming bird and this has set my imagination free.