Friday 18 June 2021

A day of rain. This is the view from the loggia in the Italian Garden, where I was sheltering from a particularly heavy downpour along with fifty Scottish football fans.


A Song Thrush was clearly an England supporter.


The familiar Blue Tit arrived several times to be given pine nuts ...


... and a Great Tit brought a fledgling.


Carrion Crows perched on an urn ...


... and the weathervane at the Lido restaurant ...


... and one ate a crayfish that it had somehow caught.


A Reed Warbler came out of the reed bed at the Diana fountain before flying into the bushes to find insects for its young.


A Grey Heron and a Cormorant have discovered that there are plenty of small fish in the Italian Garden fountain pools.


A heron crossed the small waterfall in the Dell.


A Lesser Black-Backed Gull stared imperiously from a post at the bridge.


The single Coot chick at the boathouse has escaped the gulls and is now quite large.


Geese hastily took to the lake as a dog approached. They have to be extra careful as they are moulting and flightless.


A new Canada x Greylag hybrid was with them, with unusually pale pink feet.


A Mandarin drake, still looking quite smart, wandered along the edge of the Italian Garden.


Mallards enjoyed a puddle.

5 comments:

  1. Ugh. Football chants tend to make my skin crawl (no offence to football fans: it's just a subsconscious knee-jerk reaction). I guess the Song Thrush was finding it unmelodious and chose to make its protest audible.

    Poor Great Tit and child, all soggy and wet.

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    Replies
    1. I don't mind them. Belonging to a tribe and getting drunk with your fellow members are basic human needs. They were friendly in spite of my being obviously English. But I am not a Song Thrush.

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    2. Felicity Miller19 June 2021 at 22:15

      The Scotties were amazingly friendly. Given they had nowhere to go in London and it was soaking wet, even more amazing.

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    3. Made a change from the usual dismal bunch you find sheltering.

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    4. I've always found Scots to be very friendly and patient. but perhaps it was on account of my being a clueless foreigner with a tendency to never knowing my way!

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