Sunday 11 August 2019

There were two Cetti's Warblers in the shrubbery on the east side of the Long Water near the Italian Garden. I don't know whether they were mates or rival males. There was a good deal of singing and chasing. As usual they were deep in the foliage and it was impossible to get a good picture.


Little Owls tend to stay in their holes when it's windy, but the male near the Albert Memorial was out on one of his favourite branches. This still picture doesn't show what it was like ...


... as the leaves were flailing around him and he was getting very ruffled. I couldn't keep the camera still during the stronger gusts.


There was a Stock Dove in the next tree.


The Jay near the Italian Garden was waiting to be fed, but had not brought its offspring along. It is looking sadly tatty, but will soon grow some new head feathers.


A Robin in the Rose Garden waited for me to fill the feeder.


The male Lesser Black-Backed Gull at a Lido, an intelligent and resourceful bird, noticed that the wind was blowing things off the restaurant tables through the fence into the water. It waited on the shore for them to arrive. Here it is exploring a little paper cup that contained sauce.


A juvenile gull was hanging around nearby and not being chased off. Possible it belongs to this pair. But I haven't seen the female gull for a while. This is something to keep an eye on.


The pigeon-eating gull was not on view, but he had clearly been around as a Carrion Crow was finishing off one of his victims.


A young crow in the Dell caught a crayfish, but didn't know how to deal with it, dropped it and went away.


On the Long Water, the Great Crested Grebe with the two older chicks fed one of them, in spite of interference from a Black-Headed Gull trying to grab the fish.


The younger chicks were on the far side of the lake with one parent looking after them.


A pair of Greylag Geese on the Serpentine rinsed their feathers and flapped their wings.


Honeybees were busy on the flowers in the Dell.


Tom was at Hornchurch Country Park, where he got an impressive shot of a Wood Sandpiper (on the left) and a Green Sandpiper in the same picture.


Green Sandpipers are the same colour as other sandpipers. Perhaps the name refers to the greenish grey colour of their legs.

2 comments:

  1. That's an extraordinary shot of both Sandpipers. Excellent for comparison purposes (wading birds are such tricky business).

    I wonder that the Little Owl should decide to come out in such a horrid day. It looked pretty unpleasant up there on the branch.

    Do you suspect something has happened to the female Gull?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm unsure about the female gull. Neither of them was in the usual place today. Will keep watching, of course.

      Delete