One of them arrived on a twig carrying a length of spider web, the material which makes their nests so strong and elastic.
The other Long-Tailed Tits' nest at the Lido is still quite at quite an early stage, and the birds were building up the side walls.
Robins are singing fit to bust all over the park ...
... but the Chaffinches have not really got going yet.
A pair of Starlings: the male on the right has a faint bluish tinge to the base of his bill, while the female has a slightly pink tinge.
A Carrion Crow perched menacingly outside a Starling nest hole.
A pair of Magpies nesting near the Triangle car park examined a dead Magpie in the lake. Update: I had never seen this behaviour before, but Tinúviel's comment below alerted me to the fact that Magpies mourn their dead.
The Great Spotted Woodpeckers in the Rose Garden now come down to the feeder as soon as I fill it up. There are two pairs in this area, disputing territory. This is a female, as you can tell by the absence of a red patch on the back of her neck.
The female Little Owl near the Henry Moore sculpture was out on a branch.
The sitting Grey Heron on the north side of the island ...
... stood up to turn over the eggs.
The mate of the pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull is much less aggressive than he is, and had some difficulty recapturing her lunch after a cheeky Carrion Crow took it from her.
The Coots at the Dell restaurant have delayed rebuilding their storm-damaged nest till the wind dropped, but today was quite calm and they have started bringing twigs to get the enormous pile above water level again.
Joan Chatterley sent the latest picture of the teenage Black Swan in St James's Park. Its eyes are beginning to turn an adult red, and it seems that its odd two-tone neck is now black all the way down -- though, as Joan says, this may be a trick of the light.
Tom was at Rainham Marshes and got a fine picture of one of the resident Barn Owls in flight.
Excellent picture of the sadly ever more rare Barn Owl.
ReplyDeleteI've seen Magpies gathering together near a dead Magpie. We had picked the body up for burial and they kept following and scolding us. It felt as if they thought we had interrupted a funeral.
It's nothing short of a miracle that a Long Tailed Tit should build so precisely and nicely such a complex structure aided just by their teeny tiny little beaks.
Thanks for the information about the Magpies. There's a sad but interesting video here.
DeleteThat's **exactly** what we saw (and interrupted)!
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