The Mandarins at Peter Pan still have their three ducklings, and were keeping them well sheltered behind the spiked railings.
Another pair of Mandarins were resting on the willow tree near the bridge. A Chinese visitor told me that Mandarins are a symbol of fidelity because they are believed to mate for life, unlike other ducks.
The Egyptian Geese at Bluebird Boats still have their four young, whose survival so far seems miraculous, since their parents are making little effort to look after them. At lest the young ones had the good sense to keep close to the platform.
The Coots building the nest in the impossible place in the middle of the Long Water have gathered up the bits that fell off yesterday and reassembled the shaky structure.
A pair of Great Crested Grebes were making a vague mess that they consider to be a nest on the fallen poplar tree near Peter Pan.
The Black Swan was on the Serpentine island, resting behind a clump of plants and very hard to see.
A female Gadwall was preening on the edge of the Serpentine.
A Pied Wagtail was collecting insects for a fledgling perched on a moored pedalo in the middle of the lake.
The pair of Coal Tits in the leaf yard were energetically carrying off pine nuts, and we are pretty sure that they have a nest in the bushes, and looking forward to seeing the young ones.
The male Little Owl was in the top of his chestnut tree, basking in the sunshine.
What do you think accounts for the messy nature of water birds' nests Ralph? Are there any exemplar species they should be aspiring to?
ReplyDeleteWell, it's not a moral matter. Great Crested Grebes have a sound reason for building such low nests, which is that they are hopeless at climbing.
DeleteA little on wedded bliss among birds (Back Swan please note); because the male and female mandarin duck are so unalike, their name ‘yüan-yang’ is often used colloquially in to mean an "odd couple" or "unlikely pair”. More perfectly conjugal is the 'chien' (鶼), literally a ‘concurrent bird’; the male and female each have one wing and one eye, which makes them dependent on each other, indeed inseparable. They appear in Apollinaire's 'Zone' as “les pihis longs et souples / qui n'ont qu'une seule aile et qui volent par couples”; the Irish poet Brian Coffey refers to them in his long poem ‘Advent’ as “parable Chinese fictive one-wing birds”. I don’t think they’ve been seen in Hyde Park yet (but the Regents Park ornamental waterfowl centre has some very unusual critters . . .).
ReplyDeleteThanks for this intriguing information. I have yet to see a concurrent bird. Apollinaire was clearly straining to find a rhyme here.
DeleteWonderful blog, Ralph! Thank you so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteCould it be that the Mute Swan in the top picture has adopted a gosling (or the other way around)? On my screen the cygnet looks rather like a Canada or Greylag gosling.
I thought that too Christina.
DeleteWas also wondering, but it seemed unlikely. However, Monday's picture shows it beyond doubt.
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