Bountiful birdlife

My balcony is abuzz with birdlife at the moment. After a dry spell (I had no suet balls in stock), they have returned to delight me with their antics. A flock of around 15 Cape White Eyes descend on the halved apples, barely pausing to peck before flying off in a flurry into the nearby coprosma. They used to feed off the orange berries of this tree which sustained them for many years, but the drought sadly reduced it to a spindly skeleton with a single branch retaining a leafy twig or two but no berries. The White Eyes do enjoy the suet ball, but far prefer the fruit, as do most of the other avian visitors.

The Cape Bulbuls are more flighty and disappear at the first sign of human activity, but the White Eyes have become accustomed to my standing in the doorway, camera in hand, and I think they enjoy teasing me with their lightning fast darting in and out of the shrubbery. The startling yellow plumage of the Cape Weaver brings sunshine on a grey day, and the much duller Cape Canary blends into the background so well that it can be overlooked.
It was very exciting to spot the Olive Thrush again after a long absence (perhaps due to the fruit not being of the variety it enjoys?) and it very obligingly allowed me to take a few sequences and admire its beautiful colouring. It usually feeds on the ground and has taken plums down to the lawn to give them more attention. They are insectivores but appear to thoroughly enjoy a little dessert.
The Southern Boubou is not shy and appears in the early morning to peck on the suet ball and even pick up the fallen crumbs on the deck. He is very photogenic.
Today a Fiscal Shrike came to visit, not normally coming this close and preferring to hunt insects from the heights of the dead gum tree next door, and he didn't stay long as there was no meat on the table.
The irrepressible Lesser Double-collared sunbird is always around, chirping cheerily from before dawn, ever alert to the danger of my cats, who have a preference for catching this little chap and there have been many narrow escapes over the years for sunbirds in my garden. If I catch the cat quickly enough it is usually possible to calm the bird down until it can fly safely away.
The other common residents who are always first to appear are the pigeons (food for the Black Sparrowhawk and occasional Peregrine Falcon), house sparrows (pretty little birds who are very sociable) and the dratted Redwing Starling, bigger than all the others and makes a terrible mess of a suet ball.
There's definitely never a dull moment outside my window!