A beautiful home where our friends used to live, now torn down by the property-owners to make way for yet another condo, is the lot next to ours. After the house was pulled-down, the lovely trees all chopped-down, and the ground dug up to start the new foundation, the rain water has stagnated and little «islands» have formed with the rubble, bricks and mortar. Grasses, shrubs and weeds abound. Tadpoles and tiny fish in the water pools. Birds in the shrubs. Dragon flies and butterflies.... this place has turned into a tiny little haven for these creatures. The caretaker tells me that a small Kingfisher visits every early morning and sometimes again in the evenings... I have yet to spot it. Today being a holiday, prefect to visit the little sanctuary and spend a few hours looking at the birds, and photographing them. A Magpie Robin came to take a dip, then dry out on the warm rocks.... a couple of stray cats were lurking too - hoping to find a tasty meal! They went hungry.

Seen above are White Wagtail - Motacilla alba [the one with the 'heart' shaped marking on chest]; White-Browed Wagtail - Motacilla maderaspatensis; Oriental Magpie Robin - Copsychus saularis; House Sparrow - Passer domesticus.

Article also posted at GlobalBirdTrekkers

2 purple and yellow Sunbirds come to a flowering shrub in the small garden patch which projects out from our apartment into the Mahogany trees outside. They have been busy destroying the shrub by pulling off the outer fibrous bark to take for nest-building.... and I've been trying to shoot photograph them for weeks now. Without any success. The few frames I got, are too dark. So, I setup 2 SB800s suspended them with bungee-cords to the grille above and put a 300mm on the camera inside the room. I wait and I wait and wait and nothing happens! Then, just as I move off for a coffee or a ciggy - I can hear the tweets! By the time I am in position, they are gone.... Anyway, while waiting in vain I've photographed raindrops, flowers from the shrub, and today a dragonfly that spent a while visiting and keeping me company...... but no Sunbirds yet.