Monday 12 August 2013

Stirrings in the bushes beside the ticket office of the Lido turned out to be several Dunnocks.


Evidently they have bred. They have been in this spot for several years, and it is one of the best places to see Dunnocks because you can get on both sides of the hedge. There are probably quite a lot of Dunnocks in the park, but almost all remain unseen deep in the bushes.

One pair of birds that has definitely bred is the Wrens in the little shrubbery at the southwest corner of the Serpentine bridge. Two young birds were making a remarkable amount of noise begging to be fed -- wrens are amazingly loud for their tiny size. Here is one of them.


A pair of Blackbirds in the Dell have had two young, though these are now large enough to forage for themselves and have stopped bothering their parents. Here one of them enjoys an apple  discarded by a visitor; the two were taking turns at pecking at this unexpected treat.


This Moorhen was walking along the edge of the waterfall in the Dell, leaning over the edge and hauling up clumps of algae growing under the lip of the fall.


The sure-footed bird kept its grip on the slippery stone with a fast current flowing over it. Of course if it were swept away it would simply take to the air. But I have never seen a Moorhen fall off anything it chose to climb on.

The Reed Warbler family could be heard in the reeds near the Diana fountain, with an occasional glimpse of an adult flying out and plunging into the reeds again.

The two Great Crested Grebe chicks were in their usual place next to the isalnd, and there are now three nests on the go: one on the island and two on the Long Water. All the birds are months behind their usual summer schedule (except for the weatherproof Tawny Owls, who were nowhere to be seen today).

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