Azure Skies May 24th

First birds I hear in the morning have always been a curious little side interest of mine. If I'm up at that time I like to record who and when.

First prize today goes to ... House sparrows.. Passer domesticus already chipping away right outside my window at 4.55 a.m. those cheeky little chaps who had colonized the entire U.S. in less than 160 years.

Second prize to a serenading Senegal dove in the Bauhinia at 5.23 a.m.

3rd to Hooded crows calling from somewhere across the street at 5.47 a.m. I think the sunbird slept in;).. he must have been wiped out after his masterful sunset performance, but he was back and vocal later in the day. Just kidding, he was probably foraging. A graceful warbler started up a short while later right before I fell asleep.

5 p.m. - 6 p.m. ish, temps about 30 degrees C, humidity a neatly matching 30%, barely a breeze and clear azure skies

Graceful warblers .. vocal and foraging, in grasses, in thistles and one was busy all the way to the top of a pine tree.

Turtle Doves Doing their tribble impersonations in many locations.

Collared Doves. Some cooing and calling but mostly foraging, quite a few pairs seen on the ground around the woods

Jackdaws. A few vocal

Swifts. Screaming and hunting bugs over middle of the valley.. earlier in the day than usual but there were an awful lot of flying bugs about today.

Greenfinches. Some vocal

Syrian woodpeckers. Some vocal and seen working on the pine trunks low down. Forgot to mention some light drumming yesterday.

Blackbirds. Some in song, quite a few seen foraging on forest floor various parts, one place female not far from male, foraging amongst in the pine needles

Eurasian Jays. Foraging and vocal. Four of them having a dispute in the young pine grove.. Some sibling argument no doubt. Much aggressive 'cchhaahhing' and crest raising. their crest is quite short, looks like a punk spike hair-do when raised.

Orange-Tufted Sunbirds, apart from garden, also along the creek path, one calling and flying between top of acacia, then foraging in top of a pine.. Lots of juicy little caterpillars and other bugs on pine for them this time of year.

Feral pigeons - flying over singly and in small flocks as usual.

Plenty bird activity in the orchard.. quite a number of foraging Great tits, also Jays, Yellow-vented bulbuls and such. Calls over east of Hobbies. then we saw the pair gliding together over far end of orchard and road, magnificent as usual. First we saw a kite just above the hill crest to the east.. I first thought that was a raptor, laughed at myself.. it was a kid's kite! Looked higher and saw the hobbies.. looked much higher still and saw a majestic soaring Buteo way up and the hoodies were leaving it alone this time.. too much effort to get all the way up there no doubt.

Some hyrax activity of adults but no kits out. ( just when we bring out the camera for family shots heheh) No gazelles still :((