Thursday 18 October 2018

A holly tree on the edge of the Long Water is a favourite place for Starlings to congregate. There were about forty of them inside the tree, chattering loudly.


Long-Tailed Tits dashed through a tangled thicket near the bridge.


A Rose-Ringed Parakeet perched in a red oak tree.


A Crow bathed in the marble fountain in the Italian Garden.


Another finished the leftovers of the pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull.


There's still only one Common Gull on the Serpentine. More should arrive around the end of the month.


One of the young Grey Herons stalked over the roof of the Dell restaurant with a determined look in its eye. It can't eat Feral Pigeons, which are too large for it to swallow whole. Maybe it had seen a rat.


There are plenty of rats in the Rose Garden. One looked out confidently from a herbaceous border.


A Great Crested Grebe on the Serpentine managed to get airborne after a desperate fifty-yard run.


The young grebes from the east end of the island are now able to catch their own fish. But when a parent appears, they still chase it. The parent dived, either to catch a fish or just to get out of the way of the pestering teenager.


This Canada Goose could often be seen lying miserably on the edge of the Serpentine. Happily it seems to be recovering. It still isn't walking properly, but at least it's preening its neglected feathers.


The white Mallard had a vigorous wash in the shadow of the island.


The shelter on Buck Hill is home to all kinds of martial arts, exercises and dances, but this one left me baffled. It seemed to be some kind of a lesson, because a woman was watching from behind one of the pillars.

3 comments:

  1. OK, now I am officially stumped. That is no martial art I know of. Perhaps it is some sort of modern or contemporary dance?

    The look of annoyance in that parent Grebe on seeing its pestering child is priceless. It's funny how the almost-grown-up bird reverts to childish behaviour in the blink of an eye.

    I wish the Grebe's long take off process would have been captured in video. I mean, I am sure that the Grebe would object to being filmed in such an ungainly predicament, but I always found the long frantic flapping stretch endearing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Seeing the clip again though, some movements remind me of a very static and amateurish version of taijutsu. The lack of foot movement is baffling though.

      Delete
    2. One of these days I hope to catch a grebe taking off. It's something that happens very suddenly, so I always reach for my big still camera which reacts instantly. The camera I use for video is a bridge camera and you can't get it going and zoomed in less than two seconds.

      There is now another suggestion under the YouTube clip of the mysterious martial art, but only a suggestion.

      Delete