The Basunti Babblers and chillies beginning to ripen.

The day starts for me at 5:30 with a large mug of tea, which I drink on the Gate House veranda.it starts to get light at about 5:40 and I wait, with mug in hand, for the morning show.
The Basunti Babblers are a troupe of eleven adult birds. They are a bit larger than a Blackbird and seem to be led by an alpha female. The first one to turn up in the morning will perch on an open branch to keep a lookout, while the rest come in to forage on the ground. They noisily pursue any bugs, caterpillars or insects, in the vegetable beds in front of the veranda, occasionally scrapping over some particularly tasty morsel. They are extremely active birds and no stone or leaf is left unturned in the search for food.
All this activity flushes out a lot of insects and this morning the Babblers were accompanied by two female Asian-paradise Flycatchers, two Black Drongos, a Dark-sided Flycatcher, a pair of Common Mynahs and even a Black-rumped Flameback got into the action. This all makes for an extremely interesting and entertaining half an hour, by which time the Babblers have hoovered up everything in this section of the garden and they move on. The Jungle Babblers are also great for locating any land predators or birds of prey in the garden, as they create a huge racket when they spot one and make it very obvious where the creature is hiding by mobbing the location.
The Chilli crop this year is quite exceptional as they love the hot, wet, monsoon weather. I have small red ones, which are similar to the Thai Birdseye, yellow, orange and a large red. The increase in hotness is pretty much in that order. The small red ones are edible, just, but the large red ones are seriously painful. This year I have also managed to grow a Chilli called Naga Jalokia, which is supposedly the hottest Chilli in the world, coming in at nearly a million Scoville heat units. These are not quite ripe yet, but I have not dared to try them, as it was the only packet of seeds that I have ever bought that came with a health and safety warning.