Friday 23 August 2019

The older of the two Great Crested Grebe chicks from the west end Serpentine island is still being fed plentifully by its parents in spite of the arrival of a new chick.


I tried to find the family at the other end of the island -- thanks to Bluebird Boats for taking me there -- and could hear the chicks calling under a bush, but they wouldn't come out so I didn't get a picture.

The two chicks of the newer family on the Long Water both saw their parent coming with a fish and headed out to grab it. They are being fed so often that there is no great urgency.


A group of Coots on the Long Water passed the time by having a mass fight.


This is the single teenage Mute Swan on the Serpentine with its parents. This and the single one on the Long Water, both roughly the same age, are now fully grown and the last part to develop, their wings, ready for use. Soon we shall be seeing their first attempts to fly.


Two quite small Egyptian goslings wandered around alone.


The four surviving Tufted ducklings are growing fast. Their mother took them for an expedition down the Serpentine, where nutritious algae grow thickly along the edge.


This Mandarin has been hanging around the Vista alone for several days. It looks as if the three others have flown back to the Mandarins' main home on the Regent's Canal between the junction of the Grand Union and Regent's Park.


A Mistle Thrush picked as much fruit as possible from the rowan tree on Buck Hill before flying off to digest it.


A Starling drank from the Serpentine, taking a beakful of water and throwing its head back to swallow it.


A Dunnock lurked unobtrusively in the top of a holly tree near the bridge.


Ahmet Amerikali got a good picture of the familiar Coal Tit in the same shrubbery.


A Honeybee in the Dell neglected her work and rested on a dead flower ...


... but a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee on the same plant was as busy as ever.


A Small White butterfly drank nectar on a flower nearby.


A mat of waterweed in the Italian Garden pool keeps down the ripples so you can see a reflection of the fountain. NB nothing whatever happens in this video, but watching it is not compulsory.


Update: just in from Mark Williams, a fine picture of another Willow Emerald damselfly, this time male. I think he got it in St James's Park, and am now checking this. Later: yes, it was St James's Park.

6 comments:

  1. Quite restful , watching nothing happening, especially with water I think.

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    1. My view too, but some people on the YouTube channel are getting restless. Luckily there are other channels with comic kittens and people falling off cliffs to keep them happy.

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    2. A lot of silliness around. Keep on trucking.

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  2. Good to know Ralph. As it's established at Buck Palace Gardens it wouldn't be a great surprise. Amazing how fast this recent colonist has spread, just as small Red-eyed Damselfly did a few years earlier.

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