A long way up

What a day for wild life! It started with breakfast out on the verandah, when I saw a squirrel running along a branch, much higher and faster than usual - except that on closer examination, it turned out to be a marmoset. The first time we've seen one of those around here, I suspect the environmental agency is probably responsible for letting them loose. He leapt into the tree at the end of the lawn, shot down it and onto the fence, where he paused for a photo op.

Then - wonders will never cease, a small squirrel followed exactly the same route. It looked like a juvenile, did it think the marmoset was Mummy? Or was it trying to chase it off? He also paused for a photo op, but HH didn't reckon either shot was good enough to post, and also turned down the one of the rainbow and strange golden light after the storm that held up our departure back down to Rio.

There was another summer tragedy this evening - the caretaker brought up a young toucan, which had smashed into our neighbour's window. From the way he was holding it, I thought it was alive at first, but alas, it was quite dead. I took advantage of the delay caused by the rain to cut out some hawk shapes to stick on the windows, in an attempt to stop more suicide bids, and suggested the caretaker's grandchildren might like to make some more for the neighbour's windows.

We seem to be collecting too many bandits - hawks, falcons, toucans, marmosets, snakes, another neighbour's 14 cats, all likely to eat bird's eggs, fledglings and even fully-grown birds.

HH must be trying to get more work out of me. He decided on the shot above, the now nearly-clear flight of steps. In the foreground, the pile of weeds I dug up today (there was another pile just as high yesterday, now on the bonfire.