This evening on another run to drop someone off at the helipad I saw a little Ruppell's Fox by the side of the road. As we passed it turned and ran off into the bushes flashing its very fine tail.

Our force protection guys are constantly cursing all the holes that the foxes and jackals dig under our perimeter fence. There's too much good stuff inside the wire, nothing is going to stop them coming in.

Even thought the temperature has got as low as 30 at night, the insects are still active during the day. In the last week I've seen dragonflies, mostly small reddish and gray Libellulids like the genus Sympetrum back at home, several species of ant, and a handful of Pierid butterflies that look like they are probably Cabbage Whites.

We have a little planter with flowers in it that we now take in at night. I was looking at the leaves of the marigolds and I found little leaf mines snaking through some of the leaves. By the looks of it I think its an Agromyzid Fly larva. Several insects including some microlepidoptera and some Chrysomelid beetles have this unusual habit of making a trail through the middle layers of a leaf as their larvae feed and grow. Some birds are fond of picking the larvae out of their mines before they can pupate.

I haven't been out much birding this last week. I have noticed an increase in white wagtails. These funny little birds seem to be everywhere on post in little groups of 3 or 4 birds. I've seen a Kestrel a few times flying around our building and a black redstart now seems to be a permanent resident hopping around our patio, flying up on one of the tents and making its circuit around our scap lumber pile.