Scandent Scarlet

Think of an English country garden. A Large English Country Garden. With a Rambling Rector in an old apple tree. Now scale your thoughts down again. This is a climbing aloe. The only one amongst 450 species which climbs.

March garden flowers

This morning I made my usual monthly record of what's in bloom. At last. Or as usual. (Click the Dozen for Diana tab, for earlier months) First fruits. A solitary orange on our three newly planted citrus trees at the Mediterranean Sun Circle. The berries on the Australian brush cherry - why don't the birds eat them? There is a layer of fallen, ripe berries on our gravel driveway. One of our handful of apples, from three trees! And the guavas are coming, sprouting from the roots of trees we dug up to make the driveway. Now I can see for myself why they are frowned on, as invasive aliens, which we are supposed to only grow with a permit!  

Father and Son sunbirds

Remember Bathsheba in her fig leaf bath. With her understated olive grey plumage. This fig tree is right outside our kitchen window, so the zoom lens on our new camera was working overtime.

Our kingfisher is back

Last January we got terribly excited. We had an adult kingfisher teaching junior to fish for lunch. Papa said ‘Now watch carefully dear. We dive gracefully, perfectly, like an Olympic Gold Medallist. If those clumsy two-legs listen V E R Y carefully, they may ‘just’ hear me touch the water with my beak.’ And papa flew back into his perch on the tree, and swallowed his Lunch.

Best the old Canon could do, last January

Sunbird bathing

Imagine. Being so small. That you can bath in a few drops of water on a fig leaf. That was the very first light shower we had after the summer heat.

Wash the right wing … (Right is first)