Before the dawn

It's a perfect June day in Cape Town. The sun is still safely tucked away below the eastern horizon as the night sky turns from black to indigo to violet as dawn progresses. High in the west, the waning moon still casts shadows in the garden, and somewhere a frog is calling in the damp undergrowth. A sunbird chatters in the treetops, always greeting the sun long before it appears.
The heavy seas of the past week have settled to a gentle roll of breakers across the bay, the kelp lying in tangled glossy heaps along the rocks where it was tossed in the storm. Seabirds are back at the shoreline pecking at the sea lice and mussels that are once more accessible in even tides.
Hadedahs shout as they straggle across the lightening sky, making an early start to their day. Their more elegant cousins, the sacred ibis,will follow shortly in swishing v-formations, sometimes with a glossy ibis or two joining them and upsetting the colour scheme.

No breeze disturbs the leaves of the trees and the palm trees stand straight and tall, framing the back table of Table Mountain as if planted specially for that purpose.
The next few weeks will be the time to be in Cape Town if you want to see her at her best.