Thursday 24 August 2017

The Great Crested Grebes on the nest near the bridge have brought out three new chicks. Theys had a little play fight and were given feathers to help their digestion. Their mother arrived with a fish. An older chick from the first brood tried in vain to intercept her. She tried to give the fish to the new chicks but it was too large, so she let the father have it. This video was shot from a distance of 200 yards.


This is the father bringing a fish to the family from the Serpentine, going under the bridge from which I shot the previous video.


There were also two Little Grebes on the Long Water. I really don't know whether these elusive little birds come and go, or whether they're here the whole time and we don't notice them. They are oddly silent, and I think they aren't a pair.


The Moorhen chicks at the bridge are growing up, and are losing the red colour in their bills. They fade to a drab brown during their teenage months, and when adult revert more or less to the colours they started with.


The Mallard on the Round Pond still has three ducklings in spite of the circling Herring Gulls and Lesser Black-Backs.


The Black Swan was on the Lido again, staying ashore as the water was full of human swimmers toiling back and forth.


I went to the rowan trees on Buck Hill, hoping for pictures of Mistle Thrushes eating berries. Five arrived, but four charged straight into the middle of the tree where they couldn't be photographed, and one stayed out on a twig and did nothing.


There was also a Starling in the tree.


A Long-Tailed Tit clung to  the underside of a twig with one foot while turning round.


A Jackdaw perched on the wooden knob on top of the shelter at the foot of Buck Hill.


The female Little Owl at the leaf yard was having a scratch.


Lower down in the tree, a Rose-Ringed Parakeet was chewing open a chestnut seed, unaffected by the sharp prickles.


Just up the hill there was a solitary Boletus chrysenteron in the grass.

2 comments:

  1. The Black Swan appears to be looking at the swimmers with some amusement. We must be such an ungainly sight to him, who is all grace and ease.

    Poor teenage Grebe. If it were human, it'd be in need of psychiatric help for abandonment issues. Great steady hand recording that video! The image is so clear even at such a distance.

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    1. I was using a GorillaPod flexible tripod on the parapet of the bridge, supporting my Nikon Coolpix 900 monster zoom camera. Fine, but the birds kept drifting out of view. This video was shot with the equivalent of a 2000mm lens, not an easy thing to handle.

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