Before the dawn

It's breaking dawn as I stand outside on the balcony. The eastern sky is a pale orange glow, fading to sombre indigo in the west as I scan the zenith for the first birds winging their way to the feeding grounds. A gaggle of hadedahs straggles by, barely perceptible against the unlit sky - it's early for them. Two lone sacred ibis are way ahead of the flock that will come by at first light, and a pair of night herons fly in the opposite direction as they return to their roost in the milkwoods.
The branches hide the smaller birds that are chirping out their dawn chorus - quite a variety on this early spring morning, promising a day of warm sunshine - robin, thrush and boubou. Sunbirds are silhouetted in the bare gum tree, their plumage dulled without the sunshine, but still irrepressibly cheerful.
It's a little later and the sky is palest blue - a fine mist rises from the sea where the shore break is powerful and throwing up spume with each thunderous crash. Soon the sun will peep over the mountains and melt the mist away and the background noise of Man preparing for another day will mask these early morning sounds of Nature.
Surely the best part of the day.