Wednesday 27 October 2021

Great Tits, a Blue Tit, a Coal Tit and Long-Tailed Tits darted around in the shrubbery near the bridge.


A Blue Tit was expecting a pine nut, but had to wait while I took its picture.


A Wren searched for insects in the dead tree.


There were Robins all along the Flower Walk.


The Grey Wagtail flew over several times. Here it is on a rail in the Italian Garden, one of its usual hunting stations.


A Starling shone in a sunny spell on a table at the Lido restaurant.


A Magpie also displayed its fine iridescence as it probed the bark of a tree for insects.


This is the pair of Magpies between the Henry Moore sculpture and the bridge, which have successfully raised several families in the past few years.


A Carrion Crow bathed in the Serpentine.


A Herring Gull snatched a hoverfly larva from the surface of the lake.


The Great Crested Grebe family on the Long Water were together under the fallen poplar.


Grebe supplements their diet of fish with the midges that fly low over the surface of the lake.


Fallen leaves are building up at the downwind edge of the lake. A Moorhen looked for anything edible that has blown in with them.


A pair of Egyptian Geese claimed the sawn-off poplar at Peter Pan as their territory.

4 comments:

  1. You certainly caught some birds looking their best yesterday-namely the Grey Wagtail, Starling & Magpie.

    Interesting to see the Herring Gull with a hoverfly larva. Can't see the detail but presumably something like an Eristalis sp?

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    1. It's quite common here to see a gull snatching a hoverfly from the lake. I'm surprised by how big the larva is to produce quite a small fly.

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    2. I wonder about the logistics of that. Where does all the excess larva flesh go? I guess it is an absurd question, but I wonder how you get something so small out of something so large. It seems like a waste.

      Excellent video of all four Tits, all conveniently grouped together. What a fine picture of the colourful Blue Tit, so fine and bright!

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    3. All I can think of is that the larva consumes the excess during development. But really I don't have a clue.

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