Saturday 10 October 2015

The Great Crested Grebe family from the fallen poplar were over one of the submerged baskets of twigs near the bridge, with the parents hauling up small perch by the dozen to feed their young.


All were completely ignoring the territorial challenges of the grebes from the island, who think they own the baskets. In the intervals of being fed the chicks were rushing around happily in all directions, chasing each other and playing at fishing.


Eventually this idyllic scene was interrupted by a Cormorant which wanted to fish in the basket and chased them all away.

Just along the shore, a Coot had picked up one of the numerous rat-tailed maggots that are floating in the lake. Seeing this, a Black-Headed Gull swooped on it, but it was too late -- the Coot had already crash-dived.


The pair of Mute Swans on the Long Water were eating the leaves of the fallen poplar branch. They preferred the ones that were under water, as the ones in the air were already beginning to dry up.


At the east end of the Serpentine, a Mallard was eating nettles. I haven't seen this before.


The Pied Wagtail at the Lido restaurant was running around under the feet of the people at the tables. It caught a small fly.


The female Little Owl was on the pair's usual branch in last year's nest tree.


The productive patch of wood chippings under the plane tree near the Physical Energy statue has a third species of mushroom, the White Domecap, Lyophyllum conatum. A ring of these almost completely surrounded one of the trees.


And here, between the Little Owls' nest tree and the leaf yard, is what I think is a Red Cracked Bolete, Boletus chrysenteron, but the cap is not cracked enough to make that identification certain.


Update: Wendy, who runs the excellent Wino Wendy's Wildlife World blog, had a post today about fungi in which she had found and named some beautiful and often strange ones, but that left a tail of unidentified fungal objects that baffled her and me. If anyone can identify any of these, she would be very grateful for a comment on the blog.

No comments:

Post a Comment