The female Little Owl was moving around quite a lot, and also calling so that I found her in several places. Here she is near the Speke obelisk.
The male owl was in a lime tree, found because there was a furious Wren scolding him from the bottom of the tree. But he wouldn't come into sight to have his picture taken.
A Chaffinch was also in an angry mood, because there was a Carrion Crow under another lime where evidently he had his nest.
More loud scolding came from a Rose-Ringed Parakeet as a squirrel climbed past its nest hole.
Mark Williams was at the Welsh Harp reservoir and got a good picture of a Whitethroat.
A Grey Heron perched in a treetop on the Serpentine island to get away from the insistent demands of a chick in the nest below. The nest can't be seen but you can hear the young bird clacking its beak.
One of the young herons from the first nest was fishing from the gravel strip in the Long Water. It crossed paths with a Lesser Black-Backed Gull.
It was the turn of the male Great Crested Grebe at the island to carry the four chicks while his mate found food for them.
The single grebe chick from the nest near the bridge, seen looking down from the bridge parapet. You can see the unique swimming action of a grebe, with its fringed toes acting like turbine blades.
This is the widowed grebe whose mate died a few weeks ago, drifting aimlessly along the edge of the Serpentine.
Another solitary bird: the cygnet that has apparently been abandoned by its parents was poking around the Coot nest at the Dell restaurant, probably looking for snails.
The Mallard in the reeds under the parapet of the Italian Garden has only one duckling left. There are hardly any big gulls on the Long Water, and I suspect pike as the culprit.
The Moorhens here have done only slightly better, with two chicks left.
In contrast, the ten young Greylag Geese on the Serpentine are all in good shape, now teenagers.
The Greylag with white patches was also here.
An Emperor dragonfly hunted over the Long Water.
It puzzles me why the cygnet should have been abandoned by its parents. It's completely out of character for swans.
ReplyDeletePoor widowed Grebe, so forlorn and lonely. It breaks my heart. Although the sight of the four chicks happily sitting on their father's back brings a smile to my face.
A day with an Owl is a good day, come what might.
Yes, I am baffled too by the solitary cygnet. It has been alone for several weeks now. No dead swans have been seen, though these are usually found.
DeleteNice to see you caught up with the Little Owl.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to see you still have Chaffinches. I haven't seen or heard one locally for months. Sad they have gone. We do seem to get wintering flocks, no doubt from northern Europe. Last year I did hear two singing birds in one area of the country park, but none this year.
Always a joy to watch Emperors on a warm sunny day. We do see plenty of these. On Thursday I visited Denbies hillside near Dorking & there's a pond in the valley & there were 5 patrolling Emperors & fun to watch one in a dog fight with a Brown Hawker.
We also have Brown Hawkers in the park, but they are more or less impossible to photograph as they whizz by; and Four-Spot Chasers which do stop occasionally but I haven't been lucky with them this year.
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