It perched on an urn in the Italian Garden, just far enough away to avoid another quarrel.
Lower down in the tree, a Grey Heron was doing a good imitation of a dead branch.
The young herons in the nest of the island were on view, with their beaks open to cool down on a hot day.
One of them struck the heron's sunbathing pose, with wings half spread.
A Mallard preened, so her ducklings did too. Mallards are doing surprisingly well on the Serpentine this year, despite the large number of Herring Gulls. This is one of two broods of six, and there are also three teenagers on the Serpentine and three on the Long Water.
The newest Tufted Duck were family in the same place as yesterday, here seen looking down from the bridge. I could only see seven ducklings, though it's very hard to count them as they keep diving. At the end of this clip you can hear a Little Grebe calling.
One of the Little Grebes on the Long Water came a bit closer to the bridge than usual, and preened before diving under the netting into the reed bed. They have nothing to fear from the Coots on the nest in the background, as they can dive like lightning.
Two of the three Great Crested Grebe chicks from the family at the bridge pestered their parent for food. The third was under the willow in the background.
Two more chicks had a quiet moment under a tree opposite Peter Pan.
The dry soil is making it hard for birds to find worms, and they are having to reply on insects. The two young Carrion Crows next to the Henry Moore sculpture were exploring the waste bins without finding much.
So I gave them a peanut each, to see if they have now learnt how to open the shells and extract the contents. They can manage it, but it's still taking them a while. An adult can do this in ten seconds.
No day is complete without a sight of a Little Owl. The male at the leaf yard was shown on my first ever blog post on 6 April 2012.
A small group of Long-Tailed Tits were bounding around in a neighbouring tree.
Nulla dies sine noctua!
ReplyDeleteI am sort of glad to learn that there is something gulls are not good at (imagine what may happen if they had claws and talons!). They are fearsomely good at anything else.
Congratulations on the great clip of the Little Grebe! They are so difficult to film. Great job!
Gulls are never going to develop into proper raptors, always let down by their silly little feet. Recently discovered that falcons are descended from parrots, and convergent evolution has made them resemble hawks. But these had strong feet to start with.
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