1-7 September 2011

This post is going to seem idyllic, and that's appropriate.  Our life is like that.

The weather right now, traditionally, has been a sunny period between two monsoons, the heavier coming in October.  But the lesser monsoon that starts in June was late, and it has been raining on and off every day for over a month.  This rainbow came on 31 August (one month in our new home) when the sun came out for the first time in a long while when it was drizzling, as usual.  The picture was taken from our balcony.  sigh

When we left our home on Gray's Hill, I cried for two days because I was unable to have a bird feeder, etc., in our new home due to monkey invasions.  The monkeys also terrorized my flowers.  I was really upset.  Another thing I disliked was the low, ugly building along the back of the house, which we had to look down on all the time.
Well, it turns out that building is a great place to throw bird seed and watch all the birds come to eat.  AND, big puddles collect when it rains, so everybody comes to bathe and drink.  So fantastic!  Here are Spotted Doves.  Aren't they pretty?  (We had ten of them the other day.)

On Saturday, the 3rd, on our daily walk over at the Singara tea estate, this is what we saw late in the day.

The following morning, we found our bison friends grazing in the tea.  (I think they never stop eating since they're so big.)

And today, near the tree temple just inside the forest next to the tea plantation,  I found this guy crossing the road and encouraged him to turn back where it is safe.  Isn't he/she gorgeous?

Oh, and this morning, we saw this guy walking through the tea.  This picture is from the net because, by the time we figured out what he was, we couldn't get a good picture.

This is a Ruddy Mongoose, which had the coloring  of the one we saw.  The Nilgiri Mongoose is black.  Who knows.  But pretty darned exciting, huh?