Monday 4 September 2017

The female Little Owl at the leaf yard returned to her usual chestnut tree.


She stood her ground when annoyed by a Magpie, and was still there when I went past several hours later.


The Mistle Thrushes in the rowan tree on Buck Hill ...


... were joined by a Blackbird ...


... and a young Wood Pigeon ...


... which had been eating berries in the nearby hawthorn tree, but found there weren't enough.


A Rose-Ringed Parakeet in a cotoneaster bush was eating not just berries, but the whole bunch stems and all.


A Blackcap ate a blackberry.


The pigeon-killing Lesser Black-Backed Gull had changed its hunting ground to dry land, and had caught a pigeon on Buck Hill. Its lunch was disturbed by Carrion Crows and Magpies.


Two young Carrion Crows have appeared at the Rose Garden, hatched very late in the season. They are still begging for food from their parents, but one of them finds an apple core in the grass.


A Moorhen in the Italian Garden fed a chick with some tiny creature it had found among the algae.


The new Greated Crested Grebe family on the Long Water were among a group of Common Pochards and Red-Crested Pochards.


Their parents were fishing in the wire baskets on the other side of the bridge to find small perch for them.


Perch are also plentiful under the platform of bluebird Boats, though impossible to photograph here.

The Black Swan was fast asleep. When I approaced he opened one eye and went back to sleep again.


Starlings crowded on to the weathervane of the Lido restaurant.

3 comments:

  1. Is it my computer or are the legs on the pigeon-eater less custardy than the usual suspect? Also, while I remember I think your previous film of it killing its prey is the first documented example of the behaviour change you detected, ie from killing by drowning to killing after immobilising. Wonderful observations and capture again. Thanks.

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    1. I checked a still photograph where the colour is better, and yes, it is the usual gull, but his yellow legs stand out less strongly against the yellowish-green grass than they do against the tarmac on the shore of the lake. Wish I'd arrived in time to see how he caught the pigeon on dry land.

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  2. Lovely set of portraits in green. They could make a wonderful series of birds in a green background.

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