Sunday 29 August 2021

A Little Grebe appeared on the Long Water. It obligingly stayed on the surface for a while, as it was travelling to a fishing spot in the reeds.


A closer look. It's already changing into its winter plumage.


The Great Crested Grebes on the Long Water were out and about with their two chicks, though they remained stubbornly on the far side of the lake. A chick was fed with something small, maybe an insect larva.


The chicks had a brief swim while they were being moved from one parent to the other.


This is the older chick from the nest in the fallen poplar.


One of the Moorhens in the Italian Garden fed four chicks in the safety of a netted planter.


The single Coot chick in the water lilies is out in the open, but is growing fast and will soon be out of danger from a gull attack.


A pair of Red-Crested Pochards mooched around under the dead willow.


A Grey Heron surveyed the scene from a swamp cypress on the other side of the lake.


A Herring Gull emerged from a dive into the Serpentine.


The female Little Owl was hiding in the leaves on the nest tree ...


... while a Wren yelled at her from a bramble patch.


A Wood Pigeon drank from the pool at the top of the Dell waterfall.


A Common Carder bee visited a clover flower at the back of the Lido.


Tom was at Dagenham Chase, where he had the good luck to find a Nightjar, a bird I've never seen.

4 comments:

  1. Wow, a Nightjar! Those are extremely difficult to see. For a few years one used to hunt from the belfry of a church in a small village here, and it was quite a tourist attraction.

    How very kind and nice of that Little Grebe to pose so to have its picture, and video, taken. Usually I cannot even follow it with my binoculars! I'm not fast enough to follow it between dives. In Spanish they are called 'zampullín', 'little diver', which I think is quite close in meaning to 'dabchick'.

    Wrens punch wonderfully above their weight.

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  2. What an amazing looking bird the Nightjar is, like a bit of loose bark.

    I wish I could get that Little Grebe video -- and indeed any video with a background of moving water -- over in anything like its original quality. I've just been trying Rumble but gave up after technical difficulties. I have also tried Vimeo, where the image is lovely but there were severe problems with buffering and their service is intolerably bad.

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  3. Lovely shot of the Little Grebe-such feisty little birds. Used to be pretty bold when I saw them at Kew, which I haven't visited for some time.

    Good shot of the Nightjar. I think Tom twitched rather than found this as it was found by a local patch watcher.

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    Replies
    1. The Little Grebes in Regent's Park are also very bold. I have stood on the water's edge and watched them diving inches from my feet.

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