Tits chiming, and gazelles eat nuts?

No gazelle show for some days and now we suspect we know the reason why. Nuts! The gazelle weren't going after the grazing under those trees, (rather sparse in itself) but after fallen sweet almonds! We checked under their favourite tree and though we found a few hoof tracks in the soft earth, particularly on the way into the water channel in the foreground, they could have been days old. Not a single nut was left and no more in the tree. The scraggly tree to the right of the largest tree is a hawthorn or some close relative but we think all the other three are almonds. I hope this won't mean they'll desert gazelle field for the rest of the winter but we'll just have to look harder for them!

Meanwhile: Black redstart at the bunker ruins on wednesday, just calls since then. Graceful warbler in gazelle field, Jays, Blackbirds, Syrian woodpeckers, white spectacled bulbuls in the woods. Jackdaws and hooded crows up on the hill and around and the usual house sparrows and bulbuls heard in the garden. Ticking of a robin down by the dry stream. Night singing insects were already chiming before 5 p.m. in gazelle field.

Now, friday midday, I can hear a graceful warbler in the garden, (they pretty much take the ecological niche of wrens in the U.K.) and not long ago heard the chiming of at least two great tits in full song again. I don't remember them singing at this time of year last year but this is the point and value of keeping this log, to keep a record of behaviour from year to year so we can compare the years. The Bauhinia is still in full leaf which is beautiful but obscures visibility!

Nov 30 -12-21 degrees C

Gazelle! It's Friday, just after 3 p.m. (18.2 degrees C, humidity just 29% and rising, winds easterly and very light)

We saw adult male in the pinewoods a little north of central trail just strolling along.

Black redstart was at the bunker ruins, chaffinches calling in the pines there, Jays, Jackdaws, Hooded crows, Syrian woodpeckers about and great tits about. Heard nice blackbird song on the way back, in the trees on the north end of the bank between the neighbourhood and valley road.

No fewer than 7 pairs of Senegal doves at our end of the street. They congregate near the corner store and 'breadcrumb corner' across the road from the store.