Saturday 5 May 2018

The Great Crested Grebes nesting on the island have three chicks.


A grebe on the Long Water did one of those grebe shrugs to settle its feathers.


Virginia reported that the Coots nesting on the solar panel platform in the Round Pond also have three chicks, and sent this fine photograph.


I went to see them today, but the chicks were hidden by the big yellow box of electronic gizmos.

The Coot nesting under the balcony of the Dell restaurant turned over its eggs.


There are 13 of them, and it also laid an infertile one which it rolled out of the nest.


Virginia also alerted me to a new family of Egyptian Geese on the Round Pond. They have seven chicks, down from eight yesterday.


The Mute Swans nesting on the little island in the Long Water were doing their best to destroy the remains of the vegetation.


The swan at the Lido had made her nest more comfortable with some fresh leaves.


The Grey Heron is the lower nest on the island was poking restlessly at the eggs.


But from the invisible upper nest came what I'm almost certain was the sound of a young heron begging for food, the first to be hatched in Hyde Park this year. The still picture on this clip was taken last year, and doesn't show this nest -- it's just a decoration for the sound recording.


The heron in the Dell blended into the reeds.


I just discovered another video of our pigeon-killing Lesser Black-Backed Gull on YouTube. It was made by Idut Martinez, and shows him at work on the Round Pond.


A Mistle Thrush near the Albert Memorial collected a caterpillar and a few small insects for its nestlings.


A Carrion Crow was sunbathing on a log, and also panting to cool itself down.


The male Little Owl at the leaf yard came out of the nest hole from a few moments.


There was no sign of a Little Owl in the oak near the Albert Memorial, but a Green Woodpecker uttered its laughing call from the top of the tree.

6 comments:

  1. Amazing news and posts. I’m coming tomorrow. Will you be around? :) Struggling to see owls. Thanks for all your posts!

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    1. Meet you at the south end of the Serpentine Bridge at 10.30am. Can't promise an owl while the females are still nesting.

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    2. Yes. I’ll be there. Binoculars round the neck and probably a hat on.

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    3. Thank you. See you tomorrow!

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  2. That Gull behaves almost like a raptor. It is an amazing, if dreadful, sight.

    Ralph's own video on Pigeon Killer has more than 171,000 views as of today!

    I'm beginning to feel very anxious about the stripy little ones. Someone tell me it's going to be fine in the end?

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    Replies
    1. The more you watch birds, the more you realise that war is normal and peace is a human illusion.

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