A Wren beside the Long Water leapt around in a bush protesting furiously at something I couldn't see.
Another was perched on a twig, calm for once.
A Chiffchaff came up out of a bramble patch near the Henry Moore sculpture.
A Blackbird sang in a holly tree near Peter Pan.
A Pied Wagtail hunted on the grass at the Vista, not a place where you usually see one.
This Grey Wagtail on the edge of the Dell restaurant terrace is not the one I've been seeing earlier.
I hope they are a pair and will be nesting under the Dell bridge. Neither of them has the black bib characteristic of a male, but they don't get that till their second year.
A Wood Pigeon strolled through the wildflower patch in the Rose Garden looking for tasty plants.
In the Grey Herons' nest at the west end of the island you could just see the heron with the very red bill sitting down. I hope this is a sign that they have eggs and are serious about breeding.
The young herons in the other nest were visible but not doing anything worth photographing.
A heron in the Italian Garden posed elegantly on an urn.
This urn is fairly new, having been made to replace a damaged one when the garden was restored in 2010. You can see two of the original urns dating from 1860, now very eroded by acid London rain.
The Mandarin pair were in the Italian Garden in the morning ...
... but later flew on to the Serpentine to resume their persecution of the lone drake.
A female Gadwall looked quietly elegant.
This is the sort of muck the ignorant bird feeders on the Serpentine are throwing at the Mute Swans. The mould infects the swans' feathers and gives them pink patches.
The Black Swan on the Round Pond called to his Mute girlfriend in a language she couldn't understand.
The gravel strip on the pond has now been completed. It's only ten feet from the shore and a swimming dog or fox could reach it in seconds, so it offers no protection to roosting waterfowl. They could at least have put a mesh fence on the land side.
At the moment its only tenants are Herring Gulls and Lesser Black-Backs.
Hi Ralph, it's really looking rather pathetic. Too short for the amount of birds and the size of the lake. And as you say it's about 5 seconds away from the pavement edge. Good luck to the sleeping swans...I guess any kind of comments will just fall on deaf ears as per usual.
ReplyDeleteJenna
Let's hope the birds are intelligent enough to realise it's useless. We'll have to see whether the swans and geese are fooled.
DeleteI'm trying hard not to roll my eyes. It looks as if officers/managers the world over think, if something is worth doing, it's worth doing wrong. At this point it cannot be just stupidity.
ReplyDeleteWhat a tiny ball of boundless fury, that Wren.
Tinúviel
They sit behind a desk and simply can't understand what's happening outside the walls of their office. It happens again and again.
DeleteI presume the long lens is helping with the excellent new wren pics, though I wouldn't blame anyone for using an AI tool for such results.
ReplyDeleteDisgraceful the mouldy bread, multiply toxic. Jim
It's just a very good 600 mm lens. AI? Foosh.
DeleteGreat news about the chiffchaff - am pleased to report we have one at St James Park, too.
ReplyDeleteI heard a couple more singing today. It seems we have quite a good turnout this year.
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