I’m back in the space that I love the most and where my heart stays, wherever I am. And the loquat tree is fully laden, which can only mean a feast for all. The fruits ripen early on the tree in front of my taipa cottage (rammed earth-walled), providing a 24-hour food store for the creatures of the cork forest, a good month before the ones in the valley. And I am pretty confident the beech/stone martens live in the valley – one year, I was lucky enough to catch a mother with her kit on a camera trap there. So these fruits are worth the trip up the hill on their fast little legs!

The jays and the azure-winged magpies love to feast on these fruits in the daytime; they are raucous and unsubtle in their pursuit of these apricot-coloured fruits. They are noisy and rambunctious, and though there was an abundance of fruit, they would sometimes squabble; maybe it was the sugar rush? If I hadn’t known better, a particularly loud fight on the roof sounded like two cats fighting; it was just the jays, of course, these birds are incredible mimics that have fooled me many a time in the past. Their convincing calls have had me searching the skies for a buzzard, and peering through the long grass convinced a feral cat was mewling away. I have learned my lesson, particularly at this time of year.

So, the first thing I did was set up my camera trap to see if the martens were still making the trip up the hill for these precious early spring fruits.

And there they were, posing as I had never seen them before, up on their hind legs to catch sight of something out of my sight, whatever it was looking at gave me the gift of this view, and I am grateful for that. I’m pleased to say that they made the trip back into the tree at least 3 more times to grab more fruit.

What a wonderful world this is!