View from the patio

Our Hong Kong garden 

As I sit here contemplating covid, life and the universe, wildlife comes to me. All around is birdsong, from the mynahs, the bulbuls, the koels. Chat,chat,chat, chatter go the crested mynahs, the bulbuls babble a fine symphony, the koels koh-ell, repeated, rising, rising, urgent... suddenly stop!

I’ll see here other avians: the marsh egret, the greater and lesser coucals,, the magpie robins, the blue magpies, tailorbirds, Japanese white-eyes, olive backed pipits, turquoise flycatchers, kingfishers, speckled doves, black-necked starlings. And the violet whistling thrush scampering madly across the lawn chasing a morsel, finding a snail, picking it up amd smashing it against a rock to slurp down the delicious oyster of meat. And the black kite hovering in the updrafts, its keen eyes out for a reckless rat, a feeding fish. I remember when I was working in our office in Kowloon, on the eighth floor, a Black-eared Kite zoomed past my window, down to the alley below, grabbed a rat and flew right back up, past my window, struggling rat in its beak.

And non-avians: our koi carp, their frogs and their dragonflies, the rat-snake basking daily by the fish pond, in the early summer sun, the Chinese cobra in our kitchen garden, the Burmese python in the bush. Keep the dogs away! 

And sometimes we catch Madame Mouse, on the bird feeder, stealing their sourdough.