Sunday 16 August 2015

One of the Little owlets obligingly turned up to lend distinction to an uneventful day. Here it is adjusting its wings, which are surprisingly large for such a small bird.


A Cormorant at Peter Pan was also attending to its wings, stretching and flapping them to dry them. It was one of a pair that had been fishing together. Chasing the fish into a narrow band between the two birds increases the batch for both of them.


A young Robin near the bridge is almost grown up and has its red breast, but its head is not yet quite up to adult standard.


One of the young Dunnocks in the leaf yard was hopping around the feet of the visitors who were feeding parakeets.


Moorhen chicks, even at an early age, can't resist climbing and balancing. This one's playground is the plastic net around a clump of water plants in the Italian Garden.


An adult Moorhen on the Serpentine was experimenting with a new food, popcorn, which a visitor was throwing at it. It seemed to like it.


The Coot chicks on the Italian Garden pond are now growing fast and feeding themselves. They thrive on algae and duckweed, which is lucky because that's all there is.


The white Mallard, absent from the Serpentine for several months, is back again.


A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee took ten minutes to work over all the florets of this complicated flower in the Flower Walk.


I am deplorably ignorant about plants, but Laura tells me that the flower is Verbena bonariensis.

Thirty-seven Mistle Thrushes flew over the Long Water, very high and heading east. I am not good at identifying flying birds, but they were making that familiar rattling noise. Have the autumn migrants started arriving?

8 comments:

  1. 37 is a huge number anywhere let alone central London!

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    1. I hoped they would come down on Buck Hill for insects or rowan berries and trotted round there, but no luck. But I am absolutely certain about the identification.

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  2. Hi Ralph,
    The flower that the bumblebee so likes is called Verbena Bonariensis. It is one of my favourite flowers... Laura

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    1. Thanks -- have added the name to the blog.

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    2. Bonariensis

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    3. Sorry. Small sans serif type makes r i look like n.

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    4. Still incorrect: there is an "N" missing in the text.

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    5. Little by little we are striving for perfection.

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