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.
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.
ReplyDeletePoor Great Tit and child, all soggy and wet.
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.
DeleteThe Scotties were amazingly friendly. Given they had nowhere to go in London and it was soaking wet, even more amazing.
DeleteMade a change from the usual dismal bunch you find sheltering.
DeleteI'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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