On another hot day, a Grey Heron panted to cool down -- though stretching out its wings in the sunshine probably warmed it up.
The heron in the Dell simply stayed under the trees.
So did a Feral Pigeon flopped on the grass. It was too hot for sunbathing.
There was a Grey Wagtail on a rock at the bottom of the Dell waterfall, but not the one that's usually there. I'm not sure how many of these birds we have in the park.
There was also a Pied Wagtail running around in the Diana fountain enclosure, too distant for a good picture.
The Robin in the leaf yard which regularly comes to my hand used to have no tail and very tattered head feathers as a result of nesting and feeding the young. It's looking much better now.
Starlings in the hawthorn tree on the terrace of the Dell restaurant waited for a table to be free so that they could raid it for leftovers. They passed the time by preening and occasionally eating a berry.
A Jackdaw stared down from a hazel branch. I always feed Jackdaws since their welcome return to the park, but their numbers are increasing so much that I shall have to stop at some point.
The Great Crested Grebe family from the west end of the island were out in the middle of the lake, with one chick harassing each parent.
The dominant Mute Swans on the Long Water were having to share their space on the gravel bank with some Egyptian Geese. They don't usually attack these, as they are too small to be seen as a challenge.
An Egyptian flapped its wings, showing off its iridescent green secondary feathers -- a sign that Egyptian Geese are really big ducks rather than small geese.
The youngest Egyptian teenager rested on an abandoned swan nest next to one of the boathouses.
There were four kinds of duck on the gravel: Common Pochards, Mallards, Tufted Ducks and Shovellers.
The youngest Egyptian teenager rested on an abandoned swan nest next to one of the boathouses.
There were four kinds of duck on the gravel: Common Pochards, Mallards, Tufted Ducks and Shovellers.
Two Red-Crested Pochard drakes and a female stood on the edge of the Serpentine.
Two pictures by Ahmet Amerikali from Southwark Park: a Cormorant separating a fish from some algae ...
... and a Little Grebe, still in breeding plumage.
Nice shot of the Red-crested Pochards with the drakes still in eclipse yet still with gaudy red bills!
ReplyDeleteThey have a slight air of being in drag.
DeleteHi Ralph you have the gravel pics mis-ordered. And as always a pleasure to tune in. Jim
ReplyDeleteThanks. Have sorted this out. In mitigation, I should point out that I am coping with a disastrous new version of Blogger which makes it almost impossible to move pictures to the desired position in the text, and that the computer with which I am doing the blog is in the last stages of disintegration before it fails entirely. I hope to be using a new machine within a couple of days, but the Blogger update is so crassly bad that I may be forced to migrate the blog to a new platform.
DeleteI tend not to be as aware as I should of just how much effort, time, thought, and care Ralph lavishes on his blog, not only for our enjoyment, as I always learn a lot of things daily from reading the entries. A labour of love, for which I am ever, always, daily grateful.
DeleteThank you for your kind words. I do hope I don't have to move the blog. But the new interface is virtually unusable.
DeleteYou are going to be followed around and mobbed and harassed to no end if the supply of peanuts ever dries up...
ReplyDeleteIs it normal for London to be so hot at this time of the year? I still cannot suppress a guffaw whenever I see stately Herons in such strange poses.
Glad to see the Robin on the mend!
No, it is unseasonably hot -- not by Spanish standards, of course, but it has been 27-28°C over the last couple of days when you would expect 20-21° in mid-September.
DeleteI am already buying peanuts in industrial quantities. But who could resist a charming Jackdaw?