Thursday 5 April 2018

A Magpie performed a courtship display in the Dell. Its mate was invisible in a tree, but no doubt watching.


Another Magpie arranged twigs in a nest near the Ranger's Lodge. Sorry about the shaky video, taken handheld at enormous zoom.


Near the Rose Garden, a Carrion Crow was enjoying the remains of a pot of pasta with cheese and tomato sauce. It was one of a number of things it had hauled out of a rubbish bin.


All over the park Wood Pigeons are ripping off leaf shoots and blossom from the trees. But they are not nearly as destructive of new growth as the ubiquitous Rose-Ringed Parakeets, which waste far more than they eat and can wreck a tree in a few hours.


I've already commented on the preference of Feral Pigeons for mates of the same colour. This couple was in the woodland on the west side of the Long Water.


A male Chaffinch sang in the Dell.


A Nuthatch in the leaf yard came down several times to take pine nuts from my hand.


A Great Tit perched in a pussy willow tree near the bridge.


A Grey Heron found the Henry Moore sculpture a convenient place to scratch.


Four Little Owls were on show today. This is the female of the pair near the leaf yard.


Her mate peered out of the hole, decided that there were too many people looking at him, and went back inside.


The female owl near the Albert Memorial stayed at the back of her hole to shade her eyes from the sun.


The female owl near the Henry Moore sculpture was on the shady side of the branch as usual.


Another very unsuitable nest site for a pair of Mute Swans, against a reed bed at the end of the terrace of the Lido restaurant. But there are so few good nest sites that they are driven to desperate measures.


You'll be glad to hear that the Great Crested Grebes at the island are still in possession of the stolen Coot nest.


Virginia sent me a remarkable sequence of pictures taken on the terrace of the Dell restaurant, where there is a hawthorn tree in which Starlings like to perch when planning raids on the tables. There was a Moorhen dancing on an empty table.


It flew into the tree, climbed up inside ...


... and settled in a nest at the top.


I think this is actually the nest of another bird. Moorhens do nest in trees, but usually in a higher and better hidden place.

11 comments:

  1. Ralph, you might be interested to know that two Black Swans have unexpectedly appeared at Kelsey Park in Beckenham.

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    1. Thanks. I must go to St James's Park and count the Black Swans. Numbers peaked at 9, but it's possible that some have left.

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  2. Very glad to hear that the Grebes are still holding on. Perhaps they are the unmovable object that will stop an unstoppable force.

    Magpie nests are a thing of wonder. I have read that the way in is so labyrinthine that only magpies are able to find its way inside, thus hindering predators from even entering.

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    1. You'd think their tails would make it hard to negotiate a labyrinth, let alone turn round at the other end.

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  3. Going by that magpie nest, my lot have a ways to go yet; but at least they are concentrating on one spot now.
    Perhaps because trees are rather late coming into leaf this year, we get more visible nests. But I didn't know moorhens nested high up.

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    1. They don't necessarily go high up. They may nest at water level. But once up a tree they do seem to want to climb it.

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  4. Feral pigeons have been widely observed to exhibit plumage-based disassortative mating. That is, they pair with differently-coloured mates more often than would occur randomly. Would be interesting if your patch bucks the trend. Jim.

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    1. Remarkable. I keep seeing matches pairs. Perhaps I only notice them because they are matched.

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  5. I wonder if the 2 Feral Pigeons are siblings rather than mates? Both appear to be female looking at their ceres.

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    1. Maybe indeed. But do pigeons remain in association with with their siblings, like geese or Long-Tailed Tits?

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  6. I'm not sure about that Ralph. Maybe some do rather than a general rule?

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