Friday 15 August 2014

There was a single Tufted duckling on the Serpentine, eating algae from one of the floating rafts of water plants. But it was being looked after not by its mother, but by a Mallard.


Ducklings do sometimes get accidentally adopted. But, as far as I know, this is the first Tufted duckling seen in this park since 2008.

Tufted Ducks breed later than other ducks, but there was also a late brood of seven Mallard ducklings near the bridge. Here they race for a bit of bread.


The father of the three Great Crested Grebe chicks near the island had caught a fish sheltering vainly under a moored pedalo, and brought it to his family. You can see from the spines on its dorsal fin that it is a perch.


Although it was rather large for the chicks, one of them bore it away and managed to swallow it.


The young Grey Wagtail was poking about for bugs on the edge of the waterfall in the Dell. It was doing quite well, and I saw it catch three in five minutes.


There was another Grey Wagtail on the Serpentine, but seen too briefly to show whether it was a young one or an adult.

The young Robins are growing up, and are already getting red feathers to replace their tweedy juvenile plumage.


Adult Robins have started singing again after their summer break, though only in a rather tentative way so far.

The male Little Owl was on his usual branch, and looked slightly askance at four people photographing him.

No comments:

Post a Comment