Monday 4 July 2022

The Little Owl calms down

A young Carrion Crow noisily begged both its parents for food, and eventually got some.


A Robin brought a grasshopper to feed its young in a very late nest, evidently a second brood.


A young Long-Tailed Tit caught a midge.


The male Little Owl at the Round Pond was in a calmer mood than recently, and looked out of his nest hole in the dead tree.


One of the owlets was visible in an adjacent horse chestnut tree.


This is one of the owlets at the Serpentine Gallery.


A returning Black-Headed Gull perched on a post at Peter Pan.


A Grey Heron had stolen a Coots' nest on the Long Water raft to use as a fishing station.


A Coot and a terrapin made use of the fallen horse chestnut in the Long Water.


The Coots nesting on the water filter below the Italian Garden had lost their second clutch of eggs in some unexplained way, but a replacement has been laid and with luck there are more to come.


The Moorhens nesting below the small waterfall in the Dell changed places.


A Greylag Goose ate a windfall plum from the tree  below the Triangle car park. There are two plum trees here with good edible plums, one red and one yellow. You don't see much fruit because people pick it.


A young Egyptian Goose was facing downwind when there was a sudden gust.


Two male Six-Spot Burnet Moths fought over a female on the railings by the Rudolf Steiner bench.


There were also several Small Skipper butterflies here feeding on the ragwort.


Honeybees visited clover flowers in the grass near the Queen's Temple.


The boat hire people were taking publicity shots. The opening date has still not been published on the Royal Parks web site, but it looks as if it's going to be this weekend.

8 comments:

  1. Gulls are going to have a field day with those boats. Thus begins Sisyphus's burden again.
    Maybe the Little Owl has realized that people looking at him means they are admiring him and not plotting to take his territory. That, or he has exhausted his fury. You'd need to be a swan to hold a grudge so long.
    What a curious little face, the owlet.

    Tinúviel

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    1. The boat people have had a good idea to save time cleaning the pedal boats. If you look at the moored boats in the background you will see that they have removed the cover of the central paddle wheel, which is where the gulls like to perch. The other parts of the boat are less suitable for perching as they are either too narrow, or too low for a gull to see out over the water. The only downside to this is that the gulls are now mostly perching on the rowing boats, whose seats provide a comfortable pace to stand and a a good view. But at least the area that has to be jet washed had been reduced. It's a matter of seconds to put the cover over the paddle wheel when the boat is brought into service.

      I suspect that the truce with the owl is temporary.

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    2. I was told the boats will be available for the public to hire today Tuesday. Monday afternoon was spent testing the systems, using friends and family. Joe

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    3. In which case it's appallingly feeble of them not to update the web site. Maybe the site is in the hands of some dozy designers, but that's really no excuse. They also have notices on the building about having to book boats in advance on the web, giving no web site URL -- and they told me that the booking system was not in place anyway. Why am I not surprised?

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    4. I heard today that the reason the web site has not been updated is that they don't want to encourage customers. They want their systems and personnel to bed in before having to cope with large numbers.
      Also rowing boats are out of action for some time because when they were tested on Monday a problem arose and it will take time for replacement parts to arrive. Could the boats not have been tested when they arrived several weeks ago instead of waiting till the first day of operation? Should I suggest they hire Mateusz as a consultant? Joe

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    5. Thank you. One would not expect rational behaviour from these people.

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  2. That looks like a cranefly caught by the Long-tailed Tit, with the large, banded abdomen and pointy head. Jim

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    Replies
    1. Thank you. It seems to have lost most of its legs, but since it was swallowed immediately after I took the picture it had no further need of them,

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