Tuesday 1 September 2020

There is a pair of Nuthatches near Queen's Gate, often heard but seldom glimpsed for more than a moment high up in a tree. Today I managed to find one outside a hole in a plane tree.


There was also a Nuthatch calling on Buck Hill.

A Robin stood confidently on a path near the Old Police House, where I had gone in an unsuccessful attempt to see the Hobbies.


A group of Long-Tailed Tits went through the trees at the east end of the Lido, where they are often seen.


A Carrion Crow dunked a bit of bread in the Serpentine. They like their food soggy.


Another one drank in the little pool in the Dell.


A Herring Gull on the Serpentine pulled up a crayfish ...


... took it ashore and started to dismantle it.  The crayfish in the lake are Turkish Crayfish, deliberately but surreptitiously introduced several years ago by someone who then caught them in a secret trap and sold them to restaurants.


The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull was enjoying his lunch, watched by an envious group.


The young Lesser Black-Back was begging occasionally, and acting as if it was his offspring. It wasn't chased off.


But I have seen no other evidence that the pair bred this year, and there are now quite a few young Lesser Black-Backs in the park, as if there is a new colony somewhere near.

A Grey Heron fished in the stream in the Dell.


One of the young Great Crested Grebes from the nest near the bridge was fishing over the wire baskets. It now has quite a big black crest.


You seldom see young grebes catch anything, but they must be succeeding sometimes in order to stay alive. There is no doubt that they have to work a lot harder for their food than skilled adults.

A young Coot in the Italian Garden picked up a twig. The nesting instinct is hard-wired into their brain.


To compare with Sunday's picture of the blonde Egyptian Goose on the Round Pond, here is Blondie in her usual place beside the Serpentine. Her wings are a uniform grey without any dark barring.


In the Rose Garden a Honeybee worked hard in a flower, only to be pushed out by another one.

4 comments:

  1. (It looks like a rose, rather than a camellia)
    Mario

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    1. There are two plants growing together here, an indubitable rose -- flowers not shown in this clip -- and this. You can see its leaves, which are not those of a rose, in the top right of the frame. I was puzzled by it and still am.

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  2. There is something so cheering about a bee collecting pollen. They look genuinely happy to do their work.

    Young Coots look so meek. I wonder if the fighting instinct develops at the same time as their unerring nesting instinct.

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    Replies
    1. I think they get the urge to fight when they lose the last of their grey feathers. The two young Coots here were quite friendly and didn't even attack a Moorhen in the same pool.

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