Wednesday 16 July 2014

One of the teenage Little Owls was again on the lime tree near the leaf yard.


Their father was in his usual chestnut tree a hundred yards away.


Little owlets grow up fast and are independent by three months old, so the young ones are going to be kicked out quite soon.

Two teenage Tawny owls -- one can hardly keep calling these large brown birds owlets -- were in their favourite chestnut tree, one tree away from the one near the boundary stone where they were yesterday. Here one of them peers round a branch to watch the intruder photographing it.


As might have been expected, the Coots seem to have reclaimed the nest near the Italian Garden that was being used by Great Crested Grebes. The dispute won't be over yet, and it could go either way. If the grebes manage to lay eggs they will hang on to the site. This picture is unusual in showing a young Coot chick with an elder sibling (at back right). Coots don't generally mix two broods in the same way that Moorhens do.


One of the new Moorhen chicks in the Italian Garden took a short walk around the waterlilies, but quickly returned to its nest with the other four.


The five Coot chicks and three Mallard ducklings on these ponds have all survived so far.

One of the young Grey Wagtails was back near the outflow of the Serpentine.


So far it is sticking to places it knows, unlike the adults which fly the whole length of both lakes.

A patch of Oxford ragwort on Buck Hill had attracted a variety of insects, including a Small Skipper butterfly (Thymelicus sylvestris).

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