These small acacias with grey brown trunks… ragged and snapped… dirty coffee timber… feathered leaflets emerge from thorned base.
Spotting crowned crane flock of c. 30 on the edge of acacias…. craning forward, showing off, stretch and then seemed to be excited by the wind and bouncing up and down again and again with broad sprung wings fully stretched… white forewing up and under. Black down the back A split coin for face, pink below, white on top. bulging black forehead.
22nd wednesday… roadside stop for turtle doves…. salvadora, rufous scrub robin,… huge flocks of qualia…. golden sparrows. subalpine.
….. The huge numbers of birds making the air electrically alive. qualias, sand martins and doves. electric rattle of sand martin.
23rd thursday – sundown… constant stream of sand martins and then waves of yellow wagtails pouring west into orange sky…. dry ground gives off warm glow… silhouettes of acacias.. their leaves folded changing their character… filigree’d.
crowned cranes calling loudly … struggling to remember what they were…. counted 28 flying into silvery wet area….
another call conundrum was the gonolek first thing….
morning – burbling of babblers i the palms around the swimming pool. cool….
…. back at Gaunth… call of the fish eagle… decreasing shadow sheltering under acacia… dry wind keeps it cool … drying out nasal cavity..
Larks and the canary type golden sparrows blow around in tight flocks.
A long tailed starling just landed in small acacia.. tail flared by the wind.
earlier on 3 jackals seemingly resting.
The acacia leaves a dry green … hanging in clusters like laburnum pods.
They emerge from the parched soil… a sandy clay. The goosefooty sueda a dull oatmeal up close… or like my lodden socks… further away the clumps are more ginger sacking.
buzz of fly. echoey electric nasal call of starling. bright eyed and shining blue green.
moon hangs a C half full tilted 2 to 8 oclock.