A Robin bathed in the lake at the Lido, shielded from disturbance by an overhanging bush.
Redwings on the Parade Ground grabbed worms. I'm not sure whether they were actually managing to pull them up, but I think they were losing hold. When they catch a worm properly they try to arrange it on the ground to make it easy to swallow.
Others perched in the trees.
The odd brown Great Spotted Woodpecker could be seen too. Several woodpeckers were calling and flying around.
A pair of squirrels emerged from a hole in a tree.
No sight of any of the Little Owls today. A pair of Rose-Ringed Parakeets mated in a beech tree next to the old Tawny Owl tree. They took a surprisingly long time by bird standards, at least three minutes.
Several pairs of Stock Doves could be seen in the nearby trees.
Two Carrion Crows harassed a Sparrowhawk high over the Long Water.
A Starling with a ring stood on the edge of the Round Pond. They are too restless, and the ring too small, to read it in the field as you can with the slightly larger rings on Black-Headed Gulls.
The Black Swan was cruising around.
A Grey Heron guarded the nest with a chick on the Serpentine island.
In the Italian Garden the Moorhen annoyed the Little Grebe again. It does this quite deliberately, and has been hostile to the grebe ever since it arrived in December. Maybe this is just a territorial thing.
The grebe went off and dived under the spray of the fountain, where the disturbance of the water brings up the small aquatic creatures it feeds on.
A flock of Egyptian Geese milled around in a disorderly manner beside the Serpentine, occasionally attacking each other. Two Greylags ignored them.
The first butterfly of the year in the Rose Garden, a Small Tortoiseshell.
A fine crop of oak galls on a sapling in Kensington Gardens. The gall wasp seems to attack young oaks for preference.
Now I wonder if Moorhens get their kicks from annoying other birds. I am recalling how gleefully they would rope climb just to knock a gull that was minding its own business from its post.
ReplyDeleteTinúviel
A good point. I tend to think of Moorhens as nice, gentle birds, but in nature there is no room for niceness.
DeleteThat Starling is looking pretty handsome.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realise you already had a chick in one of the Heron nests? When I was in Richmond Park yesterday I noticed 4 occupied nests & loved the intense colour of the bill in breeding garb.
Similarly quite a few drumming Great Spotted Woodpeckers there too. There a pair of crows were harassing a Buzzard while the Sparrowhawks (one was displaying) weren't bothered by anything.
Always fascinating to hear of the Little Grebe & its interactions with its neighbours. Its become quite a character in your journal!
That Grey Heron chick was a complete surprise. I thought the birds I'd seen displaying around the New Year had made a false start as they so often do here. It's a big nest high in a tree and you can't see what's going on. But something was.
ReplyDeletePerhaps crows find harassing a big raptor more fun than a smaller one.