Tuesday 3 July 2012


The young Mistle Thrush from the nest year the Serpentine Gallery is out and about, chasing its parents to be fed. It has much more pattern to the feathers on its back than an adult. 


The Coots nesting in the wire netting in the Italian garden pond now have two eggs, with more to come if they can keep out of harm's way.


I was wrong about them flying into the enclosure. They climb up the netting, balance on top for a moment, and jump off the other side. You would not think that their large fringed toes would be able to get a grip on the mesh, but they manage somehow.


This does not solve the problem of getting the chicks out, unless these are hatched with the same kind of climbing ability. However, coot chicks have huge feet. And I have seen moorhen chicks jump and climb remarkably well, when there was a nest inside the Serpentine outflow under the path, and they had to get up a small stone wall with a waterfall flowing over it to leave the nest.

Farther down the same waterfall today, a Mallard was poking around for something edible, having some difficulty keeping her foothold in the torrent. Shortly after I took this picture her foot slipped and she was deposited ignominiously at the bottom of the waterfall, quacking crossly.

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