The young Grey Wagtails are still in the park. Here is one of them on a rock at the foot of the Dell waterfall, photographed from the top.
There was also a Pied Wagtail on the jetty at the Lido.
A Blue Tit hung upside down from a hawthorn twig and found a larva in the leaves.
A Great Spotted Woodpecker called from a tree in the Rose Garden.
A Magpie shelled a peanut. Its teenage offspring wanted to be fed, but the parent thought it was old enough to find its own food. However, the youngster sneaked in and grabbed a nut.
Ahmet Amerikali found a Reed Warbler on a stem of Hemlock Water-Dropwort. Poisonous as the plant may be, it makes a pleasant change from the usual reed background.
The Great Crested Grebe sitting on eggs at the east end of the island passed the time by adjusting the algae on its soggy nest.
The grebe nest at the bridge should be hatching out soon.
Three families visited Peter Pan in the hope of being fed. The third Coot chick is all right but was out of the picture. However, the Egyptians are down to two.
The two blond Egyptian teenagers are now almost adult in appearance, though not yet grown to full size.
Hundreds of geese lined the Serpentine after arriving to moult.
The mother of a single cygnet on the Serpentine is a 'Polish' Mute Swan, with pale legs and feet and a slightly pink tinge to the bill. 'Polish' cygnets are white.
However, the gene is recessive, and her cygnet is the normal grey colour.
Black-Tailed Skimmer dragonflies like to rest on gravel, and the tarmac of the path in the Rose Garden is an acceptable substitute. You can see the insect's abdomen moving as she breathes.
The last time I put up a video of this species, it was on Vimeo. I was instantly banned and all my videos were removed from public view. Their dumb content filter had thought its name was a racial insult. An appeal to them had no effect, and I had to remake over a hundred videos on YouTube.
In the wildflower patch, one Buff-Tailed Bumblebee visited all the cornflowers ...
... and another worked its way through the poppies.
I am still bewildered by vimeo's stupidly oversensitive filter. It would be ridiculous if it wasn't so tragic.
ReplyDeleteLooking very forward to having a first-row seat to see the Grebe chicks hatching!
I wasn't very surprised by Vimeo's silly filter, but I was disgusted by their failure to deal with my complaint, which was made properly by their official procedure. There web page is full of fluffy boasts about how they care for you, but reality is starkly different. It was an account I was paying for, too, unlike YouTube which is free.
DeleteOn first viewing the grebe on nest pic, I saw a juvenile swan. :-) Jim
ReplyDeleteOdd. Do you mean that an incorrect picture actually appeared, or that you mistook the correct picture for something else? Blogger does suffer from glitches, and you should see the horrific routine I have to go through to insert YouTube videos, by hand in HTML because its standard insertion procedure makes the videos come out blank on mobile devices.
DeleteI mean I mistook the correct picture for a patchy-looking swan whose eye is hidden from view. Jim
DeleteGood to see the Grey Wagtail still around. Hopefully the parents are working on a second brood!
ReplyDeletePlenty of Black-tailed skimmers around now. Yesterday I watched a Moorhen chick fail to catch one that had landed on the same raft!
For the sake of botanical accuracy the Reed Warbler isn't in Cow Parsley which should have largely finished flowering by now. It's possibly our potentially most lethal plant- Hemlock Water-dropwort, which of course loves the damp environs that is likely to support Reed Warblers.
There are also Common Darters but I haven't had a chance of a picture yet.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the correction. Will change the blog when I get back to the computer.
Check those darters carefully Ralph as there have been quite a few Red-veined Darters this week & Kensington Gardens is often a top site for them. Though I've seen one early newly-emerged Common Darter, it's still a bit on the early side, especially to be coloured up. You may well be right but will be good if you can get some images.
ReplyDeleteI've seen two now. I only got a fleeting glance at the first, but I thought I saw red wings. However, I saw the second more clearly, and it was definitely Common. We have had Red-Veined Darters in the park before, and I have pictures of both species from previous years.
Delete