Monday 15 August 2016

The Tufted duckling is still with us. It seems that the mother is spending quite a lot of time in the shelter of the island, but she often comes over to the south shore of the Serpentine where, presumably, there is more food. They are omnivores, taking snails and insects as well as plants.


The Black Swan was near the bridge with his adopted cygnet ...


... but went off from time to time to chase away Mute Swans.


The dominant Mute Swan at the east end of the Serpentine was clearing out a Greylag family from the area behind the reed rafts, which he regards as his.


With all the chasing and flying about on the Serpentine, a lot of Egyptian Geese had moved to the relative calm of the Long Water. This pair was on the old water filter below the balustrade of the Italian Garden.


It has been hard to see how many chicks there are in the latest Great Crested Grebe family, who nested in a reed bed on the east side of the Long Water. But today they came into a slightly better spot and it was possible to see that there are three.


The Moorhen nest in the middle of the stream in the Dell is still going. Perhaps the water here is too deep for the resident Grey Heron to reach it. In previous years the Moorhens have nested in the reeds at the side of the stream, and haven't succeeded.


There were no Mistle Thrushes on Buck Hill. But a couple of Blackbirds were eating berries in the rowan trees.


A Wood Pigeon was sunbathing beside the Long Water.


One of the Little Owls near the leaf yard was having a good stretch. From this angle, I couldn't see which one it was.


Both the Little owlets near the Albert Memorial were in their usual chestnut tree, though not posing as prettily as yesterday.


An Emperor dragonfly paused for a moment on a reed on the Long Water.

5 comments:

  1. That picture of the Mute Swan showing all the Greylags the metaphorical door is all kinds of wonderful and funny. Well, I imagine the poor Greylags won't find it so funny. That Mute Swan is a natural-bound bouncer (is that word British English?), that much is clear.

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  2. "natural-born bouncer", I mean.

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    Replies
    1. There is a clearly understood inter-species hierarchy on the lake, based largely on size. Coots buck the system by attacking everything, and mother birds with chicks are also fearless.

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  3. Coots for president. Or something!

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