Wednesday 17 December 2014

The male Tawny Owl has settled into a routine of spending the day on his favourite perch on the nest tree. He seems to be less troubled by Magpies than he has been recently.


It is tempting to suppose that the female owl is in the nest hole below him, and he is guarding her. It is really too early for even these very early owls to think about nesting, but they constantly surprise us by changing their timetable. The pair have not been seen together as in previous years, but that may be sheer chance.

Apart from that, not much was going on. I went to the Rima relief to feed the Coal Tit, which obligingly came down, and saw a Blackbird bathing in one of the small ponds that are part of the installation, now choked with leaves.


The seven young Mute Swans from the nest in the Italian Garden, which have been wandering about in ones and twos,  were all together again and following their mother as she crossed the Vista.


In the background you can see two of the many Shovellers that are browsing all over the Long Water. One of them came so close inshore that I could have reached out and touched it, which is unusual for these normally shy ducks.


It is odd that the two Great Crested Grebes on the Serpentine, of which this is one, are still in their plain winter plumage when the pair on the Long Water are in their full breeding regalia.


I think that the Long Water pair may be quite old. As far as I have been able to observe, Great Crested Grebes become darker as they age, and keep their fine chestnut feathers for longer.

There was just one Mistle Thrush on Buck Hill.


They spend much of their time just across the road in Hyde Park, where they are  less easy to find in the long grass and big trees.

A pair of Pied Wagtails at the Round Pond were hunting on the downwind side of the pond where the waves splash over the edge and leave little pools on the pavement. They were picking up things that were too small to identify, which may be visible in this picture as small black spots.

11 comments:

  1. The photo of the procession of swans as as majestic as it is delightful.

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    1. The swans are a pretty rough bunch, though. They hang around the Vista looking for a fight with a dog.

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    2. Oh that is hilarious. No, I would not mess with an adult swan myself!

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  2. I once saw a dog owner let his small dog drink from the lake while the whole swan family were a couple of feet away. A youngster and its father hissed furiously but luckily the dog ran back to its owner before anything happened. The owner remained oblivious throughout

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    1. Oblivion is the word. I saw a dog owner today whose slavering pet was trying to kill the geese. She walked past the swans and remarked to the woman she was with, 'Careful of them -- they bite, you know.'

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    2. That would have made me SO angry!

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  3. While still on the subject of grebes. Still amazed by last week's news that grebes' closest living relatives are flamingoes, and their next nearest relatives are pigeons and allies! Good coverage on Nature and Daily Mail websites. Also a surprising intertwining of songbirds, some supposed near-passerines and birds of prey, though I gather some of this is a few years old.

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    1. by Jim n.L.!

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    2. While this was done with DNA, the extraordinary flexibility of a grebe's neck gives a hint.

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    3. I do little series of birds on Facebook, for a bird-watching friend and I to discuss. We've finished Grebes of the world, then got 3/4 way through Finches (there were too many and I ran out of steam). At present, we are looking at every single member of the Heron family. The stunning beauty of night herons (which I had never heard of) was a revelation. Today's Heron lives in the Galapagos and is modestly coloured to blend in (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava_heron).

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  4. Still on grebes. Come to think of it, there are couple of things in common between the parading ritual of flamingoes and the courtship display of great-crested grebes. Isn't evolution remarkable? Jim

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