Thursday 29 October 2015

The Black Swan had abandoned the young Mute Swan it was with yesterday, and was following another one -- the single older one, already beginning to turn white -- which it had herded out from a group of swans at the edge of the water.  The young swan didn't like this attention and swam up and down the Serpentine at a brisk pace, but the Black Swan kept up with it.


The Egyptian Geese at the Round Pond have lost all their young, as was sadly expected. They were preening themselves unconcernedly on the edge of the pond.


The young Great Crested Grebes at the bridge had stopped pestering their parents for once, and were doing absolutely nothing, which grebes are very good at.


The place on the south shore of the Serpentine where the young Herring Gull can usually be found playing with various objects was today occupied by a young Lesser Black-Backed Gull, also playing with a dead leaf.


A pair of Shovellers were revolving under the parapet of the Italian Garden.


The Little Owls were in their usual places, the male in the downhill tree ...


... and the female in the uphill one. It is still quite mild, and these southern European birds can stay outside without discomfort.


This Grey Squirrel was eating yew berries in a tree near the Henry Moore statue.


The red flesh of the berry is quite sweet, but the seed inside is deadly poisonous. This doesn't matter to birds, because their quick digestive system passes the seed through unchanged, and in fact that is how the yew distributes its seeds. But the more thorough digestive system of a mammal would attack the seed and poison the animal. I could see that the squirrel was chewing the outside of the fruit off the seed and discarding the seed. I wonder how they learned to do this, especially as they have been in this country for less than 150 years. Of course any squirrels that ate yew seeds would have died.

This delicate little violet mushroom was growing near the Little Owls' trees. There was another one a few yards away, and just one more on Buck Hill. It isn't an Amethyst Deceiver, which has a much brighter colour. I think it is Inocybe geophylla var. lilacina, a species that has no English name.


Update: Mario has come to the rescue again and says it's Parasola plicatilis, Pleated Inkcap, also called Little Japanese Umbrella. Both English names are vividly descriptive.

8 comments:

  1. The mushroom is Parasola plicatilis, formerly Coprinus plicatilis, in English Pleated Inkcap (also called Little Japanese Umbrella), a very common delicate mushroom usually found in short grass.
    Regarding yesterday mushroom, I'd like to see it in the flesh, which I will be able to do this Saturday (these days, by the time I finish work, it's already too dark to go to the park)
    Mario

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    1. Again, many thanks. The mushrooms under the plane trees were still there on Thursday morning, and some of them are quite small, so they may survive until Saturday.

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  2. Were it not for your fabulous set of pictures documenting the various objects gulls amuse themselves with, I would never have imagined them capable of playing with "toys". It's truly funny to see.

    Sad news about the Egyptians - expected as it was.

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    1. I was amazed myself to find how playful gulls are -- all three of the common species in the park. They have got the business of feeding well under control, and have plenty of spare time.

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  3. I collected some of the mushrooms (on Friday night, in the dark!). They are large Brittlestems (Psathyrella), a difficult group, and I don't have the tools to pin them down to a species. Sorry.
    Mario

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    1. Thanks very much. Amazed that you were able to find these small brown mushrooms in the dark.

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  4. The Amethyst Deceiver's colour is very unpredictable - it gets more intense if the flesh is damp, for example. There are other small purple jobs, too...

    Harry G.

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    1. Thanks. The Little Japanese Umbrellas are growing in several places in the park, always singly.

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