Star-lings

This week was amazing - birdwise. I spotted a violet backed starling, so beautiful it should be synthetic and unnatural. I mean the colors are so perfectly glossy they should have been mixed in a lab somewhere.

I keep hearing what I think are lapwings by the rocks that form the edge of the lake, am not sure though for even though its common to find lapwings by water, I think this body of water is a bit too deep for them, having said that I haven't seen anything so will file this one under "unknown" for a while.

Oh and weaver nests! I saw dozens of them on my way to the baobab, they were hidden in the reeds hanging over water, above them were skeleton leafless branches holding up 3 or 4 cormorants and a darter. They were keenly eyeing the fishermen who were casting nests nearby. I doubt they have the dexterity and determination of the eagles though (they hang around fishermen so they can steal their catch.)

One of my favorite things to do at night (since I long gave up tv) is to look at the stars. On a slow day I only get to see 1 or 2 shooting stars and I always see Scorpion, Venus the planet, sometimes I see Orion and the Southern Cross as well. Unknowingly (since I don't know how to plot them yet) I also see Taurus, Aquarius and virgo. You don't notice time when you are star gazing and the coolest thing is the sky is ever moving, sometimes you notice a star that is moving unnaturally fast and in a seemingly wrong direction, that's a satelite. A friend of mine brought her iphone which had a stars app. we had some good fun plotting and identifying constellations with it. If I get an iphone I definitely want that app. What you do is you just point to the heavens or even the ground and it will identify the stars, planets and constellations that are on the spot you are pointing at, magnifying everything like a huge telescope. What it also does is reveal the shooting stars you can't see with your naked eye..its quite something seeing hundreds of stars shooting down at the same time.