Starting to Embroider My Wool Bird Applique

I hadn't originally planned on doing any embroidery on my wool bird applique project.  I was going to do some beading, but the jury's still out on that.

After I sewed all the edges down and took a good look at the project, I judged it colorful, but boring.  That's when I decided that embroidery could add some strokes to the piece, like coming back with a fine brush over a painting to add detail.  In the upper left you see two berries that are plain, and one that has French knots.

The left side of the brown branch at the bottom has "bark" while the right side doesn't.  After I got this far, I decided I liked it enough to go forward with more.

The berries are done, except for the stems.  The tail feathers are perhaps done.  If I add any beads, this will be where it happens.  The straight stitch on the tail feathers was my second embroidery attempt in this area, after trying the feather stitch.  That looked too messy, so I pulled it out and replaced it with one strand of floss, in the simplest stitch possible, to add just a hint of direction.

I started adding "feathers" to the bird body using a modified scallop stitch; more to come. Eventually the bird will have legs, but first I want to finish the bark on the branch.

All the while I'm sewing this thing, ideas are percolating for how to finish it off, and what means of display I'll use.  Right now, it's too soon to say.