A Sunday in the Yarden

Yesterday, my pots section looked like this [picture below].  Today it looks better.  I decluttered the area by discarding a few cacti pots in little pots mercilessly.  I also thinned down the overgrowing offshoots of the now flowering orchid plants you see in the corner. This was long overdue. I also had to repot a couple of potted cacti that I want to retain for some more time.

To relax, I brought out the camera and lazed away.  In the bargain, I got to see these:

An Impatiens flower glowing in the sun. 

 A little bee rests on the Water lily petal in the pond.

There is something new I see at the pond each time I go with the camera!   This is my ten thousandth shot... or so it seems!  Five were on show today.

On the hyacinth leaf in the pond, this is a common sight.  A tiny Coromandal Marsh Dart - a damselfly perches as the sun was shining bright.

Close by is the Aechmea gamosepala.  Amazing colour combo.  A couple of those buds were open today.  

This little kitty was hiding in a cement pipe. I wanted to take a snap of it jutting its head out of the pipe, but it would not move from inside.  It was scared of my presence.  It had chosen the pipe as a good hiding place.  Who taught it to go and hide there?  This kitty is just a few days old.  I shot it when inside the pipe.  

It had come out when I was not seeing. So I missed that shot.  It's calling its mother who was around.

 Minutes later, I found it in my junk shed.  They learn to climb! 

See here!  Precariously perched at the edge of an old Charaka.

In the afternoon, I heard the tailorbird making noise. It does like that when Sunbirds also sometimes visit at the same time. But since I had the camera ready, I noticed a 'new bird'.  The tailorbird was trying to chase it away from 'its territory'!  Tailorbird is above with its olive-green wings. 

This bird does not visit my yarden regularly. This was the first time I saw.  I glanced for some clues in the Book of Indian Birds that was gifted by a kind friend on Dave's Garden, Shirley.  But was not sure. So, as always, when in doubt, I posted an image on the forum and it was very soon identified thus: The one that's common in southern India is Clamorous Reed Warbler Acrocephalus stentoreus. A bit out of its normal habitat (papyrus beds), so I'd suspect it's a recently arrived winter visitor from a bit further north that hasn't found its preferred habitat yet (that's probably why you've not seen one before!).  

With that clue, I checked it in the book which lists it as Great Indian Reed Warbler. An entry was there sans images.   So I added a few. [click].  That's how quick DG is!  A couple of images:

I missed where it flew off when I was looking at my camera for a couple of seconds.  The tailorbird had stopped shouting!  And I was lucky to be there when this arrived.