It's time we heard from the birds

Not so cute! Not so cute!? Whaddya mean? Got my eyes, yes? That'll do for now. Nobody calls any child of mine 'Not so cute'. Come back in two weeks and you'll see!

Sit still! Sit still! Who are you to tell me to sit still? I'll fluff and flounce and fling my feathers any way I please. So there. Oh, all right. But you'd better be quick about it.

Sing? Sing? It's not enough that I'm going out of my way to cling to the green stuff and look pretty? You want singing as well? Go see my cousin across the way, now there's a singer for you.

Barking Owls, Crimson Finch, Golden-headed Cisticolas

'Gitting' hot on trail of Zitting

Getting hotter hunting for Zitting Cisticolas (Cisticola juncidis). Spent three steamy hours on Saturday morning stalking grasslands in 35+Celsius in hope of closeups of the hard-to-find species. Once found, their movements when foraging have proved unpredictable. So, huge stroke of luck to get one shot of bird with small grasshopper.

Less luck but lots of patience listening and watching along the fences brought two fair looks at a possibly immature bird on the barbed wire.

First impressions from a few weeks back of three pairs occupying distinct small territories along a three-kilometre stretch of unsealed road appear confirmed by Saturday's sightings - presuming the immature bird to be a near independent product of one pair.

The Zittings share the grassland insects with more numerous Golden-headed Cisticolas (Cisticola exilis - above), and Horsfield's Bushlarks and Australasian Pipits. A slight puzzle, given their fence-posing habits and greater numbers, is the extreme wariness of the Pipits in comparison with the other three species.

And just to show one is not obsessed by birds here's a soft-image dragonfly struggling in the non-cooling breeze to stay attached to a flowering grass. Unpictured: a few hundred grey Brahman types, none of which has shown any interest in bird photography.