There were at least 15 Pied Wagtails on the grass east of the Triangle Car park. Here a female stands on tiptoe to look over the grass for insects before rushing to catch one.
Probably the wagtails are here because the area under the trees at the bottom of the Parade Ground has just been sown with grass seed as part of the restoration works, and is jammed solid wth Feral Pigeons eating the seed.
One of the pair of Long-Tailed Tits building a nest in the Rose Garden was pulling bark fibres off a tree to strengthen the nest.
The main structural material of the spherical nest is spider webs, with moss and lichen as filler and a lining of small feathers.
A Grey Heron landed on its nest on the island to take over incubation duty from its mate, which is invisible at the bottom of the huge twiggy structure.
At the end of the island the Great Crested Grebes were maintaining their nest. I was hoping to see some eggs when one bird stood up, but the white bits in the nest are just bits of plastic bag.
The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull was with his mate near the Dell restaurant. Someone threw a bit of food down, and both she and a passing Carrion Crow lunged at it. But when they discovered that it was a piece of tomato, they lost interest and went away.
A young Herring Gull in the Diana fountain enclosure was playing with a plastic bottle cap, which it had crushed flat with its powerful bill.
There was a chilly breeze, and the mother Egyptian Goose at the Round Pond had gathered her brood under her wings.
A Moorhen strolled through the butterbur plants near the Italian Garden. These will grow to several feet high, with big umbels on single stems, looking like hemlock (which for years I thought they were until someone put me right).
A Cormorant caught a perch near the bridge.
The female Little Owl was enjoying a sunny spell in the morning.
Under the tree, I was feeding some Great Tits when a new pair of Coal Tits arrived and showed an interest.
It takes a while before Coal Tits will come to your hand, so I put some food on the ground for them.
A Robin was watching the gardeners in the Sunken Garden, waiting for a chance to grab a worm.
Two squirrels were wrestling in a tree on the edge of the Bayswater Road.
Yesterday's sighting of a House Sparrow at Rainham reminded me of the sparrows we used to have in the park, which sadly dwindled away until the last ones vanished in 2000. Here is a short film made in 1926 by the cinema pioneer Claude Friese-Greene, using his own colour film process. It is the final episode in a series of travelogue films about various parts of Britain. At 5 minutes 20 seconds into the 10-minute film you can see a girl feeding sparrows in the Italian Garden.
Then as now, there were water plants in the ponds. They were abandoned as an economy measure during the war, and only restored a few years ago.
The sequence is only a few seconds, but I've included the whole film because it's interesting in its own right.
Very interesting 'personal study' indeed, thank you .
ReplyDeleteYou can spend hours watching very old films of city streets on YouTube. I never knew so much had survived.
DeleteThat is a fantastic old film and the color is impressive too. I enjoyed the title/comments too.
DeleteClaude Friese-Greene's process, Biocolour, shot alternate frames through red and green filters on to ordinary black and white film stock, and in the prints alternate frames were tinted to match. The result is tolerable, and the brain conjures up the necessary blue. Moving objects have red and green fringes, which the BFI has been at pains to edit out, but you can still see them in the legs of walking people.
Deleteand they can do it in real time now! I grew up thinking our forbears wanted sped-up films.
ReplyDeleteEarly movie cameras were hand-cranked, and the speed was up to the cameraman. Slow rates saved expensive film. In the cinema, the projectionist would adjust the speed at which the film was shown to make it look natural, or fast and comic as appropriate. The older silent films were usually made at 16 frames per second, but this gradually increased over the years to eliminate jerkiness. The standard of 24 fps was fixed only when sound arrived, because that would seem unnatural at the wrong speed.
DeleteAha.
DeleteI find them much more enjoyable to watch now that they don't all look like some Chaplin-esque movie.
Ralph has there been any kingfisher sightings at the park
ReplyDeleteNo. Of course I'd report it if there had been.
DeleteOn Saturday I watched a cormorant on the south-east side of the bridge, fishing in a quite grebe-like way including inserting its head into the gaps in the sub-surface latticing. It was successful enough to catch two hefty perch, big enough to distend its neck as it swallowed. (My partner asked the interesting question: do they enjoy the taste of what they eat? or is it wholly seen as functional?) ((And how would we know?))
ReplyDeleteI think that passerine birds that eat seeds and berries actually taste and enjoy their food. Thrushes are fussy about rowan berries, and won't eat them when they are unripe, preferring to wait till they are frosted and wizened and intensely sweet. About other birds I'm not sure. The park parakeets happily eat unripe crabapples, which must taste awful. And I can't see that fish-eating birds that swallow their prey whole can have much of a taste experience.
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