The pigeon-killing Herring Gull which has recently started work on the Serpentine is now very active, taking a pigeon every day. It was in our original pigeon killer's territory today, but the well known Lesser Black-Back was off hunting somewhere else.
A young Lesser Black-Back managed to sneak in and get a hasty morsel.
The oldest Great Crested Grebe chick on the Long Water is now as big as an adult, and was fishing by itself on the Long Water. I don't suppose it's particularly successful yet, but its parents are still feeding it.
The chick from the nest at the bridge has grown a lot in the past few days.
Mateusz at Bluebird Boats managed to get this video of the Moorhens' second nest under the boat platform by hanging over the edge and filming backwards with his phone.
The other Moorhen of the pair was climbing around on the powerboats that they regard as their home, and where they originally nested before Mateusz transferred them to a cardboard box on the platform.
The Coot on the nest in the Italian Garden was pulling iris leaves into the middle of its ever growing nest.
The teenage Mallard near the bridge is still with its mother, who stared proudly at the camera.
A Pied Wagtail hunted in the grass near the Dell. I put a 10-second lead-in on this video to try to stop YouTube from compressing the beginning of a scene with a lot of detail that would otherwise be pixelated to bits.
A Magpie sunbathed on the edge of the Dell before the rain restarted in the afternoon.
A Great Tit in the Flower Walk ate a pine nut I had given it.
This video was shot in my street an hour before dawn. The local Blackbird is still singing very late in the season, on 12 July. He was answered by another Blackbird at the other end of the street.
A face-to face encounter with a Comma butterfly near the Dell.
I tried to find yesterday's mysterious bee in the wildflower patch in the Rose Garden. It was elsewhere, but there was a Honeybee on a cornflower.
A Migrant Hoverfly (Eupeodes corollae) rested on a leaf in the Flower Walk.
East of here, beyond the Albert Memorial, there is a Magnolia grandiflora with enormous flowers the size of a baby's head. It looks prehistoric and indeed is, since magnolias were among the first flowering plants 95 million years ago in the age of the dinosaurs. The flower was visited by a couple of small flies.
A new notice is being put up at the foot of Buck Hill explaining the woodland management being carried out there. Note the Cetti's Warbler coming out on on a bramble at the front of the picture. Artistic licence, as they spend their time hidden in the bushes and are notoriously hard to see, let alone photograph.
In the background sound of the Pied Wagtail video there is a drawn out whistling call -is that a bird of prey? (or am I imagining?).
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Blackbird 'singing in the dead of night' (P.McCartney). A favourite sound of mine.
I can't think what it is. Not the sound of a raptor likely to be there, anyway.
DeleteI second Ulrike's thanks for recording the video of the Blackbird. I miss our local blackbirds so it is almost a physical pain, and this helps pass the withdrawal period.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Mateusz ought to consider changing the name from Bluebird Boats to Moorhens' place!
It doesn't matter what kind of bird it is, if it's in trouble Mateusz will look after it, meanwhile doing the day-to-day running of the boat hire business. We are very lucky to have him.
DeleteThey look like slim hoverflies around the magnolia flower, not midges. And as always a pleasure to tune in. Jim
ReplyDeleteThanks. I can't begin to identify them. Will just put 'flies'.
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