WARRING MAGPIE ROBINS

Yesterdau my continuous-since-morning Australian open 2010 tennis session came to unplanned halt by half a dozen magpie robins.

I rushed out to see what the commotion was all about. There they were, six of them, males mostly, standing on Tan's garage roof warring each other gregariously.

Most of them had that distinguishing jet black plumage. I do not know what they were wrangling about, but from the looks of things they were in a heated debate about something.

Their behaviour was keenly observed by the busily-drying-themselves-off Philippines glossy starlings perching on the electric lines barely ten feet away. They had been bathing in the rain water collected in the roof gutter of the neighbour.

Suddenly the magpie robins were quiet. They were hiding in the lush fig tree nearby.

I looked up into the heavily clouded sky and saw the reason for their sudden quietness - crows, plenty of them circling the sky over the warring magpie robins.

Crows, being dubbed as Einstein of birds, you can never predict what they would do next. They could suddenly swoop down and catch hold one of the loud-mouthed juvenile magpie robins.

I have seen crows gathering or rather stealing metal cloth hangers as parts of their nest.

Also in the sky, as if expecting the rain to fall down anytime now, were the swiftlets and migratory swifts.

From the drain in front of Yaakob's house, a 12-inch young snakehead was busy hunting for baby frogs.