Tuesday 9 July 2019

There is a family of Blackcaps in the bushes near the northwestern corner of the bridge, making quite a lot of noise but hard to see among the leaves. I got a picture of the female ...


... and Ahmet Amerikali got one of the male.


Across the lake, the familiar Coal Tit that comes to my hand is looking very tatty after feeding her brood. She will get new head feathers in the autumn.


A Blue Tit pecked delicately at a pine nut I gave it.


One of the two male Blackbirds that come to take sultanas at the foot of Buck Hill had a young one begging in the background.


There is a family of Whitethroats in the Rose Garden Ahmet took a picture of one of the parents delivering an insect ...


... and also this shot of a young Robin looking oddly long and thin, so you have to look twice to see what it is.


A Carrion Crow examined a container of sushi suspiciously ...


... before settling for something more familiar.


The Little Owl near the Albert Memorial perched in a place where it was very hard to see her, and obstinately remained in the same place all day.


A juvenile Black-Headed Gull looked pretty on the Round Pond.


There were plenty of Black-Headed Gulls on the Round Pond, but very few on the main lake.

The Great Crested Grebes at the island were feeding their single chick.


The Mallard with six ducklings on the Long Water suddenly started diving, for no apparent reason.


One of the ducklings stood on a tumbled kerbstone and scratched its chin.


The Pochard with two ducklings was at the Vista. They are growing fast.


A Greylag Goose ate an apple that someone had brought to feed the Rose-Ringed Parakeets, and had accidentally dropped.


Fishing in the Serpentine is really a form of meditation, or just catching up on sleep, but occasionally someone actually gets a large carp. Virginia took this picture on her smartphone.


Small Red-Eyed Damselflies mated on one of the Italian Garden pools.

7 comments:

  1. Do they get to keep the fish, do you know? (and wondering whether they actually eat them; that fish is a venerable old chap I think)

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    1. No, they weigh them and put them back at once.

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    2. Whilst still alive, it is to be hoped.

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  2. That Robin looks very strange. It's not ill, isn't it?

    Crows out-human humans, I think.

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    1. I think that Robin's all right. It looks thin because it was a warm day and it wasn't fluffed up at all.

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  3. That's a serious carp. The Whitethroat breeding record seems notable; presumably they are tired of getting outdone by Cetti's, even if the latter's habitat preference is not identical. Jim

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    1. I'm amazed that of the two people who photographed it neither asked how much it weighed. I have seen a carp of 28lb 2oz caught here, but the record for the Serpentine is 44lb.

      Whitethroats have been a bit more in evidence this year, but only three singing males. There is just one singing Cetti, and we nearly lost him in a recent outbreak of destructive gardening.

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