19th November 2007
Thursday, November 22, 2007 at 02:48PM It rained this morning – a heavy downpour and then some drizzle.
I photographed a Cuckoo silhouetted against the grey morning sky.
The Bauhinia are flowering but not in the mass quantities we were expecting – sometimes the entire bushland resembles a white carpet of flowers, but this time only some of the bushes are flowering: The ones which are, are truly gorgeous, each bough on every bush looking like a ready-made wedding bouquet. And then there is their aroma: delicate, almost rose-like attracting the bees. (I only saw small bees on the bushes today; no honey bees, which is unusual. There doesn't seem to be all that many bees about at the moment, although we have seen a couple of our hives with swarms in them.)
But it’s not just the Bauhinia which are blossoming: more and more flowers and tiny new green shoots are appearing everywhere, responding to the wetter conditions in their thousands. The grasses too are flowering and exquisite in close-up.
Our balcony gardens have a mind of their own…you could even say “the lunatics have taken over the asylum” when you look at how the grass is overflowing the flowerbeds, invading the house and growing in long streamers over the edge of the balcony. The rooftop Terminalia and Commiphora trees are basking in the rain too, and making the most of it. The crocodiles looked particularly green today – or perhaps it was just because the river was so red, that in contrast they appeared almost luminous. The mother crocodile is still on the sandbank, protecting her future brood.
[PHOTOS COMING SOON]
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