Friday 24 August 2018

In the same rowan tree on Buck Hill there were Mistle Thrushes ...


... a Blackbird ...


... Starlings ...


... and three Magpies.


A Wood Pigeon also visited, but left before I could get round the tree to photograph it.

The Kestrel turned up nearby a few minutes later.


This Magpie was at the leaf yard, eating an apple dropped by someone feeding the Rose-Ringed Parakeets.


A Coal Tit came out to pick up a pine nut. This one is very shy and I can't get it to come to my hand.


One of the young Grey Herons at the island was striding purposefully about, picking small edible things out of the water.


But its sibling remained stubbornly in the nest, for the fifth day since the other left it. It seems remarkable that the two should behave so differently.


The pair of Lesser Black-Backed Gulls that are almost always in the water next to the Lido restaurant terrace had a young one close by them, and there was another not far off. These gulls don't seem to go away to breed, and it is quite likely that they have a nest on a roof nearby and the two young ones are their offspring.


A young Herring Gull was not welcome on the territory of the pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Back near the Dell restaurant. But all the boss gull had to do was to advance with a disapproving expression, and the intruder flew away.


One of the Great Crested Grebe chicks from the island saw its father approaching with a fish, and went over to collect it.


A teenage Moorhen in the Italian Garden amused itself by climbing around in a patch of purple loosestrife.


The Tufted Duck with the big family had moved on to the Long Water, and here they are at the Vista. The mother is at the far right.

2 comments:

  1. Lovely series of birds enjoying the tasty and very colourful berries. I am glad to see that the Starling looks as if it is beginning to get its winter plumage (or so it seems in my screen!). Summer cannot pass too quickly for magpies: they are so tatty, which is a sartorial crime in such a dapper bird.

    (The Grebe clip is not embedded, BTW)

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    1. The Magpie is only one of a number of birds whose head feathers have been ruined by poking food down the throats of ravenous babies. But they all recover and look smart again.

      Thanks for pointing out the clip that didn't get embedded. It doesn't work sometimes and I ought to check the finished post more carefully.

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