Friday 14 October 2016

A Rose-Ringed Parakeet was pulling the bark off a twig. It didn't seem to eating it. This was just a mindless activity like a human chewing a pencil.


The rowan tree on Buck Hill with the tastiest fruit, and the most favoured by Mistle Thrushes, is getting a bit bare and the birds are having to reach for berries. There are lots of berries on the other trees.


A Great Tit in the leaf yard was getting impatient with being photographed instead of fed.


The female Little Owl was being bothered by Magpies and was deep inside the foliage when I first went by. But later they went away and she came out on an upper branch.


This is a Black-Headed Gull's threat posture, with head down but looking up, and wings slightly extended to make it look as big as possible. Sometimes this is a one-on-one display, but this gull was one of a pair who were threatening together to scare off rivals.


The staff of Bluebird Boats are cleaning their boats at the end of the season, a long task. The gulls, of course, start to foul them immediately, and the plastic owl lost its effect long ago. So the people are going round the moored boats shouting at the gulls. This is only moderately effective.


There are plenty of other places for the gulls to perch, such as the railings on the Lido jetty.


A young Herring Gull was paddling in the rapids of the Diana fountain.


A family of Mute Swans often rest and preen behind the railings around one of the small boathouses, where they are safe from dogs.


A young swan was enjoying a tremendously splashy wash.


A young Great Crested Grebe was doing a bit of flying practice. This is the moment when it got just about airborne before ploughing into the water again.


The patch of wood chips under the plane trees near the Albert Memorial is not yet up to its full autumn proliferation of fungi, but it does have a new species, the Common Puffball or, more excitingly, Devil's Snuffbox, Lycoperdon perlatum.

11 comments:

  1. I was wondering how the orphaned cygnet is getting along without our dear black swan? Sorry if I've missed any posts.

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  2. The orphaned cygnet has actually joined the mute swan family with their own one cygnet that reside on the Serpentine island. It is a little smaller than their own cygnet so maybe a pen or younger age? We were feeding them all four next to each other. The family accepted him/her well maybe because there was no other swan around? Birds are known for not being able to count!

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    1. Except corvids. Ravens have been shown to count up to seven.

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    2. Pigeons can count up to at least nine, but not reliably so. Jim n.L.

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  3. Thank you Jenna. That's very good news!

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  4. Black headed gull doing the threat thing. Sorry to be a pedant.

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    1. Not pedantic at all. Careless of me. Thanks. Corrected.

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  5. Evening Ralph, your great tit photo made me homesick for London! Am away due to tough times, but reading your blog is a comfort and joy. Thank you. I shall be in trouble when I get home, my birdies will be missing their pine nuts on my windowsill.

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    1. They will remember you. I have found that they can remember people who feed them over a gap of several months, maybe even a year.

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    2. Can confirm. My sparrows remember me from one winter to the next.

      How can that be I wonder? Most of them must not have survived the summer. Do they tell each other, like Gulls and Ravens?

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