Tuesday 12 September 2017

It was a windy day. This Grey Heron on a tree won't get too ruffled as long as it keeps its head to the wind.


Starlings enjoyed themselves on the swivelling arrow of the weathervane of the Lido restaurant.


The Little Owl at the leaf yard doesn't like the wind, but came out during a brief lull. She was fluffed up and furious ...


... because a Magpie was harassing her. She stood it for a minute, and then flew back into her hole.


Two Feral Pigeons became lunch today. The notorious Lesser Black-Backed Gull had taken its latest victim on to the roof of the Dell Restaurant to eat it.


Meanwhile on the ground, his previous one was being finished off by a young Herring Gull.


The Great Crested Grebes on the Long Water, which have been bringing their chicks food from the Serpentine, decided that the young ones were big enough to come under the bridge closer to the fishing ground. Here they are waiting for their parents to feed them.


One of the young grebes from the Serpentine was fishing under the pedalos at Bluebird boats, where fish gather in the illusion that they will be safe.


But two big Cormorants came along with the same purpose, and it had to move on.


A Coot searched for food in the shallow water at Peter Pan.


Moorhen chicks can find their own food at an early age, but still need occasional feeding by their parents. This video was shot in a pool in the Italian Gardens, and you can hear the noise of the fountains.


The Black Swan came to feed at the side of the Serpentine, and a female Mute Swan objected to him.  He was not particularly bothered, and returned soon afterwards.


There were plenty of Mistle Thrushes eating berries in the rowan trees on Buck Hill ...


... and a solitary female Blackbird.


Two Nuthatches came down to the railings of the leaf yard to take pine nuts.


The shire horses were mowing on Buck Hill. The mower's cutter bar works like a big hair clipper. It isn't at all efficient, but much of that may be due to mechanical wear in an old machine.

13 comments:

  1. I do enjoy the film clips. The nuthatches were very charming, but I felt rather sorry for the "hen pecked" black swan.

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    1. I hope I'm not overdoing the films clips. Some people don't have time to watch them, though I try to keep them short. Today just happened to be one of those days when there were a lot of video opportunities and not so much for stills.

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  2. Keep on with them, I say. I like the mix of photos & vids, some days more one or the other.
    Meant to mention (re yesterday's Poundland and its bird food): Wilko has a good range. Sorry, don't mean to 'advertise'. Just that it's inexpensive.
    (feel free to edit my entry if you feel it inappropriate; only meant as a public service announcement)

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    1. Thank you. There's no ban on naming names here. There's a Wilko in Kensington High Street only a few hundred yards from the park, but I have never been in.

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    2. Not sure about that branch, but worth checking out. If they do have it, they carry it all year round, not just in winter

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  3. As country children we knew not to go into fields that were to be cut for hay. trampling the grass makes it difficult to cut. That type of cutter works best when the grass is standing up, it slides over the trampled grass.

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    1. Yes, we were told to go round the edge of a field of anything except cattle pasture.

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  4. I like the video clips, short enough to keep interest and not so long that you move on. Around 30 seconds suits me fine. I could watch longer if it is more dramatic eg getting the heron free from the nylon.

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  5. I swear by Wilko, great quality for very low prices.... the birds on my roof garden would bear testament to that.... they polish off everything as fast as I put it out!

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  6. It was lovely to see you today and a pleasure to meet Joanna.

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    1. All the usual suspects seem to have turned up today. Will investigate Wilko.

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  7. It was depressing that Theresa May (a woman by no means free from grounds for critique) got sniggered at for thinking that walking through standing wheat was a bad thing to do. I don't see that you need to be country-bred to know that - I was't - it just takes a wee bit of common sense.

    On another note entirely ... I could not but read "Will investigate Wilko" as referring either to the English R&B guitarist 'Wilko' Johnson, or - more to my taste - the improvising saxophonist Alan Wilkinson. Neither of them folk who should be felt loose in the Hyde Park bandstand, I fear; they would frighten the shire-horses.

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