Sunday 15 August 2021

On a warm summer Sunday with the park full of people the small birds tend to stay in cover, but two Wrens were visible in the woodland at the foot of Buck Hill ...


... and a couple of Great Tits came down to be fed in the Flower Walk ...


... where the usual Jay followed me demanding peanuts.


A Starling looked down from a table umbrella at the Dell restaurant, waiting for a chance to swoop and seize a chip.


Mark Williams was at the Welsh Harp reservoir, where he got a good picture of a Chiffchaff on a rose bush.


The female Little Owl was seen briefly in the morning, but soon went into her hole and wouldn't come out. I am being sent a picture from today and will put it up when it arrives, but meanwhile here is one of her taken by Neil a few days ago.


Update: here is Sunday's picture. The photographer prefers to remain anonymous.


A Grey Heron stood on a dead tree near the bridge, looking for rats in the shrubbery.


Virginia took his lovely picture of a heron in the flooded area of the Meadow yesterday evening.


A look at some of the Lesser Black-Backed Gulls that are now spreading on the Serpentine, accompanied by their wheedling young.


The most famous of the Lesser Black-Backs, the original pigeon eater, had been preening his immaculate plumage and still had a feather stuck to his bill. He knows that he is the top gull on the lake, and the handsomest.


A Cormorant and a Mute Swan had a faceoff on the island.


The Black Swan was cropping algae off the bottom of the lake ...


... until it was shooed away by the bullying male swan who beats up all the others at the west end of the Serpentine.


A Moorhen and two teenage chicks poked around in the mat of algae at the north end of the Long Water, which has surfaced in the recent warm weather. Probably they are finding insects in it.


Their favourite perch is a branch of the dead and collapsed willow under the parapet of the Italian Garden.


A Marmalade Fly climbed up a fuchsia flower in a pot at the Lido restaurant.

2 comments:

  1. Wheedling young gulls are like cognitive dissonance. They are perfectly turned-up killing machines, and yet they still sound like harmless babies.

    Indeed Pigeon Killer is the handsomest gull of them all. I wonder why he is so fastidious about his image, though.

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    Replies
    1. Perhaps being able to spend a lot of time preening is a sign of fitness and competence. The gull can have a large meal any time he wants, and doesn't have to waste time scavenging scraps.

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