Sunday 11 October 2020

Four of us were feeding the Great Tits ...

... and Blue Tits near the bridge ...

... and also the very camera-shy Coal Tit, when a pair of Goldcrests started bouncing around next to each other. They kept it up for at least ten minutes.

A Long-Tailed Tit passed through the bushes ...

... and a Chaffinch found an insect in the undergrowth.

I think that's a leaf stem in its beak, not the body of a Willow Emerald damselfly, since these have been gone for some time -- though we did see a Migrant Hawker dragonfly nearby.

A Carrion Crow persecuted a Grey Heron ...

... another bathed in the Serpentine ...

... and a third played with a crisp packet, which someone had opened out flat so it can't have contained any crisps.

Black-Headed Gulls jostled each other on the jetty at the Lido.

The parents of the youngest Great Crested Grebes clearly think it's time the the teenagers started fishing for themelves. Their mother caught a crayfish, and despite her offspring's hungry cries ...

... ate it herself.

There were a lot of Cormorants. Here are fourteen at the island.

There were three on the posts at the other end, and more fishing in the lake. This one caught a mysterious object which I can't identify -- it doesn't look like a fish with a bit of weed round it, or a crayfish, and it seems too big to be three hoverfly larvae. Unfortunately a Mute Swan got in the way at the crucial moment and spoiled the picture.


The Black Swan was preening.

A Honeybee climbed into some odd-looking red and white flowers in the Rose Garden.

I looked them up and it's a Salvia species, Baby Sage, S. microphylla. There must be half a dozen different kinds of Salvia in the Rose Garden.

There's usually something good to see on a Sunday. Delisa was performing some very nifty moves on the Serpentine Road.

7 comments:

  1. Looks like a sub-courtship dance by the Goldcrests, was the sun out?

    Heaven forbid that Cormorant was tangled in a half-torn, mud-caked facemask. Jim

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    1. Yes, the sun was out, though it was a bit chilly.

      Whatever that thing was, the Cormorant was not entangled. By the time the swan had passed it was gone, but I couldn't see whether the Cormorant had eaten it or dropped it.

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  2. She is a good dancer. Is that her baby?

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    1. I think so, since she stayed near the pushchair. But it would have been indelicate to ask.

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    2. I've known many musicians whose children were brought along to performances from very young on. Doesn't seem to have damaged them. Some even became musos themselves.

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  3. They look like they are dancing with each other! What a lovely video. The vivid red and green background really sets the Tits' splendid colours off.

    Of course the swan would choose the exact right moment to photobomb the picture.

    Never fail to be astonished by how easy dancers make very difficult things look.

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    Replies
    1. You quite often get rollerskating dancers -- always on quad skates -- on the Serpentine Road and she was one of a number, but she was noticeably the best dancer, and the best dressed to show that off.

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