I think I am becoming a twitcher

Where we live you can usually hear nothing apart from the sound of birds. I have never really been into birds in a big way, but I have found myself wondering what type of birds they are, as there appear to be so many. This is what I have seen over the last week.

Firstly I saw these two little chaps, or chap and chapess, coming in through the cat hole, eating cat food and then hopping out.

Given my zoom photography is not very good, this is what they actually look like.

They are called Tody and are tiny with vibrant colours and long thin beaks. I thought they were hummingbirds at first as they are so tiny. Well cute, but not very intelligent if come in and out of the house through the cat hole. They are living in a tree stump in the wood next door.

Then I saw what husband told me is called a carrao which means limpkin in English.Looked like a brown stork.  It was apparently a baby one, and was suspiciously close to my carrots, but luckily did not dive in.

So, now I am all excited looking out for my new found feathered friends - as long as the cats don't find them first.

Meanwhile the balcony is finished, and el Lobito the baby husky is well impressed with the staircase.

.

Unfortunately it only lasted a day or two as the English Mastiff tried it as well. He is enormous, and fell over the side taking all the banisters with him. Staircase is now off limits until we get the taypee out to fix it.

It has been a busy week on the book front too. I have had two interviews - one in expatclic which you can read here, and one in expatfocus which you can read here

I also have a new webpage for the book. It is on a book preview site, so you can read some of each chapter, read a detailed glossary and there are also some FAQ, to give you a little more background to me, the book and the Dominican Republic. You can find it by clicking on the second logo of the book on the side of the page where it says 'see inside'.

In the meantime, to keep life interesting, I have managed to pick up a virus which has damaged the computer's registry, and although the virus has gone, the computer is not behaving itself at all. I feel like my right arm has been chopped off! I have a visitor from the USA coming today for the weekend which will be great and off to Sosua on Monday and Tuesday to get the computer fixed and then life will get back to normal. Well, as normal as it gets here.