Nature at My Door - Part 3

A continuation ...

Sometimes a mongoose will sneak across at the very back staying close to the edge of the bushes as they hunt for food and, perhaps, a mate. I’ve never actually seen one catch anything, but they are very shy and run off immediately they become aware of my presence.

The big tree at the back is home to blackbirds, yellow canaries, ramier pigeons, doves, monkeys and, I’m sure, numerous other creatures that I am not aware of. In the evenings, as the sun is setting, the birds all fly back into the tree to roost for the night. Sometimes a flock of green parrots flies by too and stops on a nearby woman’s tongue tree to feed on the newly emerging seed pods. They are also partial to the still green seed pods on the wild tamarind trees.

And then there’s my favourite, the green monkeys. The troops move around from grove to grove, so sometimes there might just be a lone male or a small group of juveniles or a large family group, but they are always there. I love to watch the young ones playing with each other, either chasing each other in the tree and along the branches, or swinging from the vines onto the ground and racing back up into the tree to do it all over again, or playing tag on the ground. I’ve even watched them tossing around a very green fruit (picked from a neighbour’s tree) like a ball, tossing it into the air and rolling it along the ground, with mother keeping a watchful eye on the antics of her children. I have also been lucky enough to see some of the juvenile monkeys at very close quarters - one morning I was standing on my deck with one of my cats crouched at my feet, when a youngster ran purposefully from the tree, across the open grassed area, over the deck railing and then climbed gracefully onto the deck floor and walked slowly across to drink from a pool of rainwater a matter of five or six feet away from me, ignoring me completely but keeping an eye on the cat. I could see every detail of his/her long black fingers and toes, black face with greenish fur and long athletic tail and lips to the floor drinking. A real privilege. 

I like where I live. I love the fact that humanity is close by in one direction, but wild nature is steps from my door in the other direction, pure unadulterated nature.