Monday 10 July 2017

A Carrion Crow was sunbathing in the Meadow.


This is the area on the Hyde Park side of the West Carriage Drive (the road through the park) stretching from Buck Hill to the Parade Ground. It is the wildest part of the park, and its lower lying parts are marshy in wet weather. I had gone there because Common Lizards had been reported, but didn't find any.

Some Blackcaps are still singing, which makes them easy to find, though they tend to lurk deep in the leaves.


A young Blackbird came out on a bush near the Lido.


In the Dell, an adult male was cooling off in a puddle beside the fountain.


He accepted some sultanas, a kind of food he had probably never seen before, then came back for more.

The female Little Owl at the leaf yard stayed in her hole during the sunny morning, and only came out in the afternoon when the sky clouded over.


The Black Swan was on the Serpentine, looking splendid but not doing anything interesting. We miss his hooligan behaviour of last year, though the Mute Swans don't.


A cygnet had been given some rice, but didn't like it and was eating healthy algae instead.


A Mallard was looking after three ducklings on the Serpentine.


The two Mallard ducklings at Peter Pan were in good order. One of them swam over some carp.


A Grey Heron lunged into the water ...


... and came up with a very small fish.


One of the Great Crested Grebes from the other side of the lake came over to Peter Pan to fish in the shallow water. It had a good shrug to settle its feathers.


The Little Grebes near the bridge were calling to each other.


The large and normally placid carp in the little stream in the Dell went into a feeding frenzy when Paul threw some digestive biscuits into the water.


The cardoons in the Rose Garden are in flower, and were attracting a lot of Honeybees.

4 comments:

  1. Carp in carb rush. (please forgive me)

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  2. Those are very large carps. Are they dangerous to ducklings? (yep, joy of the party, that's me).

    Lovely picture of the honeybee happily buzzing around such a colourful cardoon.

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    Replies
    1. I've never seen a carp snapping at a duckling or Coot chick. But there are pike in the lake, not to mention terrapins. So there is danger in the water as well as from the air.

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