I missed the Little Owls in the morning, but Neil got a good shot of the male in the pair's nest tree.
When I went back later they were calling to each other. Here is the female.
There was no sign of the young Sparrowhawks, but the male Peregrine was back on the barracks tower.
A Great Spotted Woodpecker perched on a branch near the Little Owls' tree ...
and a female Blackbird basked in the sunlight ...
... then preened on a dead branch in a lime tree.
A Carrion Crow was also sunbathing. As so often with basking birds it gave a good impression of being dead, so it was a relief when it moved.
A family of Blue Tits bustled around in a tree beside the Long Water.
A Grey Heron watched the lake from a swamp cypress.
The Great Crested Grebes fed their three chicks on crayfish in the middle of the Serpentine. A Lesser Black-Backed Gull would have liked to interfere, but didn't want to be charged by an angry and sharp-billed parent. As usual with pictures on moving water, I've added a 10-second lead-in to try to reduce pixelation.
Even when a chick was eating a crayfish right in front of it, the gull didn't try to seize it. I think it had had a bad experience with a grebe.
A Little Grebe fished under the brambles at the edge of the Long Water, a welcome sight of a rather rare visitor.
Four fine insect pictures from Duncan Campbell: first, a Bee-Killer Wasp with mud on its back from the recent rain.
A Jersey Tiger Moth ...
... and a view of its underside, showing some remarkable spurs on its back legs.
A lovely view of a Peacock Butterfly.
I also got video of a Peacock fussing about on a buddleia, a plant that butterflies of many species particularly love.
Good to see the Little Owls showing well again.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how successful Jersey Tigers have been in recent years. I remember seeing one in South Devon over 20 years ago when it was the only place in mainland Britain it occurred. Now widespread in London & beyond. I saw one at work in Twickenham yesterday. Mine was the normal form with reddish hindwings. Yours seems to be form lutescens with the more yellow hindwings.
My book for identifying Lepidoptera published in 2004 doesn't even include the Jersey Tiger, just the Garden species. I first saw a Jersey in the park in 2018 and is seemed like quite a find at the time. Now I see one every few days in the season.
DeleteIt's cheering to have a visible -- and very audible -- pair of Little Owls again. The original pair that arrived in Hyde Park in 2011 and three more pairs that came to Kensington Gardens in 2012 have gone one by one, though there was a recent sighting of what might have been the male of the pair on Buck Hill, who would now be ten years old. It has been hard finding their descendants. There is another one, or pair, near the Round Pond, so far heard but not seen.