Twelve feathered aves are lined up on a branch like pendant drops reversed. 12 curious, wistful, wondering owls stand side but side – grenadier guards of the Avian Battalion standing with a patient stance while their ink blotted yolks fix upon the world, peering at the quilts of dust that begin to choke the room. Tick-tock ambience and the smell of boiled eggs. The crocheted crystal systems of doily decoration and reading Readers Digest with the curtains properly closed. The owls stare at this sanctuary (their owners lounge and their adopted habitat for 17 years) with the distant eyeball of settled pets. The Westminster Chimes chime on the hour and the birds shuffle slightly, fidgeting on delicate legs and twitching their cotton ear tufts. The room itself is a patchwork of humble tones – clay to grey, via. the flaccid march of battlefield beige – colouring in outdated furnishings and matching the smoky tinge of pellet faeces. Sculptural weaverbird nests hang from the ceiling alongside winged dioramas and Victorian collage screens plastered with anatomical renderings of Southern cassowaries, kiwis, hoatzins, swans, jurongs and pelicans. Gilded ornithological diagrams line the walls and culminate in a monochrome print of the master and his twelve velvet buds. This is Romnant Rabbinic and his twelve feathered disciples.