Wednesday 22 April 2020

The Long-Tailed Tits in the Rose Garden constantly arrive with insects, go into the nest to feed their young, emerge and go off to find more.


The Pied Wagtail on the south side of the Serpentine is also busy collecting bugs for his brood.


A Wood Pigeon ate pink hawthorn blossom.


A Jackdaw called for attention from a post ...


... next to the alder tree where the Little Owl was peacefully dozing, taking no notice of events on the ground.


The Grey Herons on the island have been inactive for a long time. There is still one young bird in the nest on the south side, but elsewhere there has been no sign of any others nesting until today, when a heron arrived at the top nest with a twig.


The Mute Swans on the Serpentine were fighting as usual.


The pair at the boathouse were both at the nest, but no eggs have been laid yet.


Things are oddly peaceful on the Long Water. The dominant swan has not yet tried to drive off the pair nesting on the gravel bank, where they have assembled a large and messy heap of branches and rotten old plastic bags.


On the dominant swans' nest the female had left the nest to feed, carelessly leaving an egg uncovered. The male who was guarding the nest seemed unworried by a pair of Lesser Black-Backed Gulls examining the egg. With their powerful bills they could easily have pecked a hole in it.


The Coots evicted from their nest by those swans have only one chick left, which they are feeding in the shelter of the reed bed. But these persistent birds will probably nest again when the swans have finished.


The Egyptian Geese on the Serpentine still have seven goslings, and are keeping them safe on the closed terrace of the Dell restaurant, a good place with shelter from gulls and a patch of grass at the back.


A picture by Mark Williams of the lone survivor of the earlier brood.


These is still one Pochard drake on the Long Water, left behind when the others migrated because it has an injured leg.


It has not linked up with the solitary female Pochard usually seen near the bridge.

There was also just one Red-Crested Pochard on the Long Water near the Italian Garden.

2 comments:

  1. That's oddly negligent for a swan. Perhaps it knew the gulls meant no harm?

    The lone gosling is growing larger day by day. Don't want to pin my hopes on it, but it is beginning to look like a positive outcome may be possible.

    Poor evicted Coots. That is really heart-breaking.

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    1. I think you can safely assume that a gull will eat anything edible. And they do eat eggs -- I've seen them take and eat Coots' eggs. They couldn't carry a swan's egg but they could break it on the spot. So I am puzzled by the swan's behaviour.

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