Monday 1 August 2022

More Cormorants

On hot days most of the small birds stay quiet in the shade of the bushes, but the Blackcaps around the Long Water get noticed with their loud tut-tutting.


A small flock of Long-Tailed Tits and Blue Tits passed through a holly tree. Most of the Blue Tits are looking scruffy after breeding, but this one was in quite a smart condition.


Almost all of the whitish Feral Pigeons in the park have varying amounts of black or grey on them, and a pure white one is a rarity.


Two Little owlets could be seen in a horse chestnut tree near the Round Pond.



The adult female at the Serpentine Gallery looked down from a prematurely autumnal branch.


You can get a rather obstructed side view of the Grey Herons' nest on the island by standing directly opposite on the shore.


One of the young herons from the earlier nest in the spring was on the fallen poplar on the Long Water, along with five Cormorants, which are now arriving in larger and larger numbers.


A Cormorant enjoyed a typically violent wash and a good flap to settle its wing feathers.


One of the pair of Moorhens under the parapet of the Long Water stood on the abandoned Coot nest.


The other was poking around in the reeds. I was sure that this pair had been nesting out of sight, and sure enough it was just possible to glimpse the head of a chick, already several weeks old.


A pair of Coots with two quite small chicks preened together on the edge of the Serpentine. One of the chicks wandered off and a parent anxiously followed it.


The Coots from the nest at the bridge, now with almost fully grown chicks, sheltered from the sun in the shade of the collapsed willow tree.


Someone had weirdly put out three dishes of mixed mezze under the small willow tree below the Triangle car park. A Red-Crested Pochard drake inspected them from a distance, but decided against them.


Nick Abalov got two good insect pictures on the path from the Italian Garden to the Physical Energy statue: a Jersey Tiger moth ...


... and a Speckled Wood butterfly in fine condition posing on a yellow leaf.

9 comments:

  1. a nice selection of sightings and photos here hopefully i can see all this tomorrow when me and a friend visit especially the little owl, I've been waiting patiently to photograph an owl, tomorrow might be the day my patience pays off

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    1. Please write to me at the address at the top right of the blog window if you need guidance on the location of the Little Owls.

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  2. will do, also my friend is called Tom Bell and i think we'll be meeting you tomorrow (i hope) we're meeting at Marlborough gate near Lancaster gate station, i'm bringing a pack lunch with me and possibly some bird food (for example peanuts, mixed seeds and dried mealworms) i hope to see you there, until then ciao

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    1. Tom knows where all these places are, of course. But I will probably see you.

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    2. cool, i look forward to it, last time we met i got a photo of a goldcrest i was ecstatic at the time, this time will be even more special it's just the thing to kick off August, but soon I'll need to rest, I'll talk more later until then ciao

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  3. Has the tawny owl vanished?

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    1. Well, it's moved and no one has found its new place yet.

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  4. Maybe the food isn't for the birds? Here you will find similar food offerings in parks near water from practitioners of Afro-Brazilian cults.
    Tinúviel

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    1. If so, they were short-changing the ancestors or spirits, since the food was visibly old and beginning to go mouldy. Otherwise you wouldn't have been able to see it for pigeons.

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