drizzle, hyrax, tortoises

I actually felt rain this evening! A very light drizzle but definitely water falling from the sky. Patchy cumulus was rolling in from the west. That was between 9.30 and 10.00 p.m.

Our pre-sunset walk was quite interesting today.

4.50 p.m. temp: 21.2 degrees C, 66% humidity, wind WNW 6.1kt.

The hyrax colony by valley road was very active today. Adults and young scampering about on the east side of valley road, many climbing into the cypress trees and nibbling. Normally you can't smell the cypress unless you take the leaves or cones in the hand and pinch or rub them but the hyraxes had been so active in there that the aroma of cypress was clear from several feet. The youngest looked just old enough to be weaned and were busy foraging with the rest.

Toward the end of valley road we heard surprising calls. Bee-eaters! Merops apiaster We hadn't seen them in weeks! We assumed our birds had left already. These birds could be on passage migration from Europe and just stopping over to use the valley for forage. Soon we saw them. There were about thirty hawking for flying insects over the hillside sloping up to the west behind the pumping station. We looped around and headed north along the dry creek path and presently the bee-eaters overtook us, in two groups of about fifteen birds each. One group continued north, the other looped around and hunted insects over the canopy level.

We met a neighbour coming from the direction of the cistern who told us he'd seen the gazelle group but when we reached look-out corner they had already retreated under the pines of north valley. We could make out one female in the shade between the trunks but that was all.

By the time we got to the orchard we were hearing hobby calls and a single bird in flight and from look-out corner we had a fine display of aerial acrobatics as three hobbies flew up over the pines at the east end of north valley. Two seemed to tangle in the air, a fight that seemed semi serious but not in earnest and broke within a second. The birds called shrilly before launching into each aerial manoevre.

Apart from these we heard blackbird alarm calls, heard and saw Syrian woodpeckers about, heard shrike calls in the orchard, eucalyptus grove and the pines across the path from the orchard. Sounded like there were at least three shrikes in the area. Eurasian Jays were noisy and active as usual, three cautiously vying with each other for possession of a breadroll left on the path. Hooded crows and Feral pigeons flying singly overhead, greenfinches and collared doves quiet today. Some graceful warbler calls.

In the garden the yellow- vented bulbuls have been particularly vocal, quite a range of calls heard, I believe from the same family we've been hearing from some time though they are maturing now. Sunbird squeaks also heard much of the day and a flock of house sparrows particularly vocal in some handsome cypresses in a nearby garden at about 4.45 p.m. Those trees are used for roost by flock of linnets that usually winter here so I do hope this flock of sparrows will not get in the way of that.

On our way home a neighbour came to us concerned that a clutch of tortoise eggs Testudo graeca laid in her garden had still not hatched. (male and female both originally wild) I thought it somewhat late in the season but to leave the clutch alone, not uncover, interfere at all and hope for the best. Considering the tortoise activity we'd noticed a few months ago this is about the right time for hatching and indeed I confirmed this with a little net research so she needn't worry but she should also be careful that the male not interfere. She was eager to be a tortoise granny:)

They'll hatch just in time for the first rains, providing fresh vegetation in the last warmth of summer before the winter torpor.