Wednesday 4 March 2020

I'm afraid that today's pictures are not very exciting. One of my memory cards went bad and I lost a lot of images.

The Long-Tailed Tits in the Rose Garden have completed almost half their spherical nest, and at the moment it's cup shaped. You can now see more of the front wall, and some of the back wall when a bird moves off the nest.


One of them paused on a twig before going off to find more nesting material.


The bottom end of the Parade Ground is now almost completely returfed, and the birds are switching from pulling worms out of the mud to finding insects in the grass. The Pied Wagtail at the end of the clip flew off with a bit of mud in its beak, so it's probably building a nest somewhere. They favour holes in old walls.


A female Blackbird perched on the battered plywood fence at the Lido, which is supposed to stop people from climbing into the swimming area without paying, but doesn't.


The male Little Owl near the Albert Memorial was out on a branch, though he went back into his hole when it started raining.


A Great Spotted Woodpecker climbed a tree on the other side of the path. There is usually a pair here, though they're hard to spot and you can usually only find them by listening for drumming or calls.


A Robin strolled around on a bench.


A Coal Tit near the bridge ...


... and several Blue Tits came out to be fed.


The Grey Heron at the Dell restaurant surveyed a mob of swans disapprovingly.


A Black-Headed Gull emerged from the lake and shook itself dry on a branch.


A small group of Tufted drakes at the island paraded around a female.


Yet another hire bicycle has ended up in the lake. Dockless hire bicycles (as opposed to the original kind, which have to be returned to a dock after use) are becoming a major item of litter. A few months ago in Beijing, hire bicycles from various schemes built up into a sizeable mountain of scrap. Although they are quite expensive to make, it seems to be cheaper to let them be abandoned than to try to recover them.

6 comments:

  1. People also abandon these bikes in the middle of pavements, causing problems for all pedestrians and particularly those with restricted vision

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    1. Better to throw them in the lake then. We live in a world that doesn't make sense.

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  2. You got little owl and woodpecker, both exciting images to readers in Ireland who lack the former and struggle to find the latter.

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    1. Yes, there is a serious lack of owls in Ireland. I blame St Patrick, who was English and didn't understand the territory.

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  3. I disagree about today's pictures not being exciting. In addition to the daily Owl and all the small birds, the disapproving Heron is really good catch. The video of the Long Tailed Tit is all sorts of wonderful!

    How weird the bike situation. I cannot understand what is gained by leaving it in the middle of the pavement or down in a lake. Why can't they be returned to an appropriate place after hiring? Sorry if I sound obstuse- I truly am mistified.

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    1. With these bikes there is no appropriate place. They are supposed to be left in the street for people to find and hire. The system simply doesn't work. Probably the most sensible response is that of thieves who rip off the lock and the box with the GPS tracking system and use them as their own private bicycles.

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