Saturday 28 September 2019

There were at least twenty Cormorants on and around the Serpentine island, in addition to half a dozen on the Long Water. They will keep coming here until they have fished the lake out to the point of diminishing returns.


Some of them fished around the moored pedalos -- the boat hire wasn't doing much business on a grey blustery day, so they were undisturbed.


There are still plenty of smaller fish for the Great Crested Grebes. A chick raced to prod its parent into hunting.


The Moorhens in the Dell still have three chicks out of their very late brood of four -- we thought there were only two, but it's hard to count them as they lurk in the waterside plants. They coexist peacefully with the large carp in the stream.


People have strange ideas about what to feed birds, but actually corn on the cob is not a bad choice and much healthier than the bread they usually get, and the Canada Geese seem to like it.


Three teenage Egyptian Geese huddled together in the wind, just as they used to when they were little goslings.


Blondie had a drink. She looked sad. There has been no sign of her mate for some time, and it seems that he has died. Egyptian Geese usually mate for life, and may stay single if they have lost their partner.


The Shoveller drake is still at the island. The Shovellers on the Long Water didn't appear today or yesterday, and they may have moved on, leaving him alone to wait for more to turn up. Numbers of Shovellers in thge park have fallen steeply in the last ten years.


A Gadwall drake sat under a post at Peter Pan ...


... while his mate rested on the top.


A female Chaffinch poked around in the leaf litter in the shrubbery. She seemed to be finding plenty of small larvae.


There were a few people on the terrace of the Lido restaurant, enough to attract some Starlings hoping for a lunchtime raid.


A young fox looked out from the Dell before strolling into the bushes.

4 comments:

  1. Glad to see the Chaffinch is looking in fine health.

    The male Gadwall is so handsome. I always liked their subdued elegance over the gaudy showiness of other ducks (Mandarins *coughs*).

    Poor, poor Blondie... she is too young to be a life-long window. She is such a good parent, it would be cruel were she not to have any more offspring.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glad you had a Chaffinch. What was a fairly common bird here, I now can't remember how many months since I last saw one. Bigger decline than Greenfinches which i still see locally but not in the garden these days.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The foot disease has hit our Chaffinches very hard, and this one was beginning to be affected. Worse, it has spread to wagtails, especially Grey, Moorhens, one Mallard and one Blackbird so far.

      Delete